


Superlative

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa Week 2017, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:15:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10061291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: #ClexaWeek2017Clarke does not want to go to her high school reunion alone.  Lexa needs an excuse not to attend a wedding.  They get fixed up by mutual friends... what could possibly go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

She was going to kill Octavia. Kill her. 

"I'm sorry," she said to the woman standing at her door, holding a bunch of flowers and looking slightly awkward. "There must be some mistake."

"Do I have the wrong apartment?" The girl looked at the door, then down at her phone. "Are you... not Clarke?"

"No," Clarke said. "I mean, no, I'm not... not Clarke. I mean I _am_ Clarke." She could feel heat rising in her cheeks and yeah, Octavia was dead. "I just..." 

"Oh." The woman forced a smile. "I understand." She offered the flowers. "Take these anyway. I... don't have anyone else to give them to, and I don't want them to go to waste." When Clarke didn't take them, she set them down on the threshold and took a step back. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."

* * *

She was going to kill Lincoln. Kill him. How could he do this to her? How could he do this to _them_?

Not that there was a 'them'. Obviously. Clarke had made that pretty clear with very few words. Lexa took a step back, then another, slowly, careful not to accidentally back into the wall, then turned to go, hoping she could do so without it looking like she was running away.

Even though she was, kind of. When the going got tough...

She tried to push the memory of those words out of her head. How many times had she been accused of running every time things got difficult? It had eventually been the end of her first (and only) really significant relationship, and had probably contributed to the lack of longevity in every one since. 

"Wait!"

She stopped, turned, looked back at Clarke, her stomach tying itself in knots because she had no idea what to expect but was sure that it wouldn't be anything good.

Clarke stood there, the flowers in her arms, and she was obviously trying to smile at her. "I'm the one who owes _you_ an apology," she said. "I... I think maybe I just assumed. When I was telling Octavia about how I needed a date for my high school reunion, she told me that Lincoln had a friend who was looking for an excuse not to go to an ex-girlfriend's wedding, and... I just assumed. I shouldn't have, probably."

"It's not easy to just erase a lifetime's worth of heteronormativity," Lexa said. "Didn't she tell you my name?"

"Alex," Clarke said. "Or Alexander."

Lexa sighed. "Or Alexandria. Lexa." She held out her hand. "I would say nice to meet you, but it seems like maybe the pleasure is all mine."

* * *

Clarke wasn't sure if Lexa meant the words to sting as much as they did. She'd fucked up, and now she had to figure out a way to make it up to her... to Lexa. Her date. 

She started by reaching out and shaking her hand, and then stepping aside. "Come in. I'm almost ready."

Lexa hesitated, and Clarke felt like an absolute ass. How must it feel to put yourself out there like this, to go on a date with someone – even if it was a fake date – attending a high school reunion with a bunch of people you'd never met? And here she was rejecting her when she was just doing her a favor. 

"I'm sorry," she said again. "Is... is there really an ex-girlfriend who's getting married? Or did Octavia make that part up?"

"There's really an ex-girlfriend and a wedding," Lexa said. "To a man."

Clarke's jaw dropped slightly. "Ouch," she said finally. "I mean, I know bisexuality is a thing. Obviously. But... getting invited to any ex's wedding in the first place is just..."

"I'm honestly not sure if she really wants me there or if she's just being spiteful," Lexa admitted. "Not that she's normally a vindictive person, but... maybe she just wants to prove to me how fine she is without me. How well she's done for herself."

"Kind of like me," Clarke said. "You must think it's so petty, that I feel compelled to bring someone to my high school reunion just to show that I'm not living up to both of my senior superlatives."

"Which were?" Lexa asked. 

"'Most likely to succeed' and 'Most likely to end up a lonely old cat lady'," Clarke said. "I don't even like cats that much."

* * *

Lexa just blinked in surprise. "That was actually a superlative at your school?" she asked. "Why would...?" She stopped herself. Why would anyone create that kind of category? Because small people needed to put others down to lift themselves up. That was why. 

"I thought about not going at all," Clarke said. "But like your ex, I want to show them all how well I'm doing. I just... I knew – know – that if I show up alone, nothing else will matter, because they'll be focused on the fact that they were right about the dismal state of my love life, and will ignore the cause of it, which is that I've been so busy studying and going to med school and making a name for myself in my field that I haven't had _time_ to date."

"But if you show up with me, nothing else will matter except the fact that you're dating – or pretending to date, but they won't have to know that – a girl." She forced a smile as tight and strained as the one she'd originally given her. "I understand," she said. "Maybe this is a sign that we both need to face things head on rather than trying to avoid them."

"Maybe," Clarke said, but she didn't sound convinced. Not even a little. "Is it too late for me to... to fix it? I know that you don't get a second chance to make a first impression, but... I'd like to try?"

She was looking at Lexa so hopefully that something inside of her – some wall she'd tried to put up when she'd first realized that she was not the person that Clarke was expecting to show up at her door – crumbled. "Okay," she said. "Give me back the flowers."

Now Clarke was the one blinking in surprise. "Why?"

"Because we're going to start over," Lexa said. "I'm giving you a second chance to make a first impression."

Clarke hesitated, then handed the flowers back. Lexa left the apartment and closed the door behind her.

* * *

_Idiot,_ Clarke berated herself when she heard the door close. _You're such an idiot. You actually_ bought _that?_ Now she would not only be facing all of the people she went to high school with alone, she would be doing it knowing that she'd completely blown it with someone who had just been trying to do her a favor... which also happened to work in her favor... and she wasn't sure she would – or could – ever forgive herself for inflicting that kind of damage on another person, however unintentionally.

There was a knock on the door, and Clarke's heart was suddenly in her throat. Was it possible that Lexa had actually... meant it? She was going to give Clarke a second chance.

"Coming!" she called, her voice strangled as she rushed the few steps to pull it open, afraid that if she waited even a second too long the chance would be gone forever. 

She opened the door, and standing there was a woman holding a bouquet of flowers. "Hello," she said. "Clarke?"

Clarke smiled. No, grinned. "Yes," she said. "I'm Clarke. You must be my date. Lexa, right?"

"Right," Lexa said, her smile only just beginning, but Clarke could see the warmth in her eyes. "These are for you," she said, holding out the flowers. "I... it seemed rude to come empty-handed."

"They're beautiful," Clarke said. "Thank you. Why don't you come in while I get them in some water and finish getting ready?" She stepped aside, and Lexa stepped past her. 

"It's nice to meet you," Lexa said. "I've heard so much about you."

"If you heard it from Octavia, it was all lies," Clarke joked. 

"I thought so," Lexa said. "I mean, she told me that when you were a senior you were voted, 'Most likely to become an old cat lady'. What kind of person would ever get named _that_?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so short. I will almost certainly continue it... maybe for Saturday's theme. 
> 
> In my defense, I went to bed at midnight last night, was up again at 5 am, spent roughly 10 hours in airports/on airplanes, and am now having to convince my body that it is three hours earlier than it actually thinks it is. Yay Clexacon! 
> 
> Anyway - hope you enjoy anyway!


	2. Chapter 2

Clarke found a vase in the upper cabinet of her kitchen and filled it with water, sticking the flowers into it.

"You need to cut the stems," Lexa said, "or they won't actually get any water."

Clarke looked at the flowers like somehow the answer to her confusion would be found in their petals. "You do?"

"Hasn't anyone ever—" Lexa stopped. "I'll take care of it. You finish getting ready."

"You don't—" Clarke started, but Lexa just waved a hand to dismiss the objection. "Thank you," she said, and went to do as she was told, which was a bit unsettling given that they were in her house, and she should have the home field advantage. 

When she came back, Lexa had used the kitchen shears to trim the stems and had arranged them neatly in the vase, then placed it in the center of her breakfast bar that never got used. 

"Thank you," Clarke said again. "Are you... do you need the address?"

"For what?" Lexa asked. 

"The reunion. Unless you already know where it is?"

Lexa blinked at her, and there was uncertainty in her eyes, and something else that Clarke couldn't quite read, but it made her sure that she'd made another misstep, and the hole she was digging for herself was only getting deeper.

* * *

Lexa suppressed a sigh. How were they ever going to pull this off if Clarke, despite her attempt to make a better first impression the second time around, obviously didn't want anything to do with her, and pushed her away at every turn? 

"If that's how you want to do it," she said, "but don't you think it would look a little strange if we arrive in separate cars?"

"Oh," Clarke said. "You have a point. You're okay with riding with me?"

"I kind of assumed I would be," Lexa said. 

"Okay. I guess... I just thought that you might want the option of making a quick getaway," Clarke said. "If things start to go south."

"How bad can it possibly go?" Lexa asked. "You act as if you're—" She stopped herself again, because she didn't want to make things more awkward than they already were. "Anyway, riding together will give us the opportunity to get our story straight. We should probably figure out the details."

"Details?"

"How long we've been dating, how we met... details. Things people might ask, especially if they're as suspicious as you think they might be about you having a... partner? Girlfriend? What word do we use?"

"I don't know," Clarke said. 

"Exactly. The devil's in the details," Lexa said. "You look beautiful, by the way. I should have said that sooner."

* * *

Clarke felt herself blushing as butterflies began to take flight in her stomach. There was something about this girl – this woman – that she couldn't quite put a finger on that made her feel... well, that made her feel. Full stop. She hadn't been lying when she'd said that the state of her love life was dismal. She rarely went out, except sometimes with colleagues, and that was just group outings to blow off steam. It had been months since she'd been on a date, and years since she'd gone on more than one date with the same person. 

And when she let herself think about, the reason she'd never bothered with a second date with any of them was because they didn't make her feel like _this_.

 _Get a grip, Griffin,_ she told herself. _It's just a charade._

She realized then that she still hadn't responded to Lexa's compliment, and that to continue to leave it hanging there between them unacknowledged was only going to make things even more awkward than they already were.

"Thank you," she said. "So do you."

And she did. She was wearing a suit that was obviously tailored for her body, but that was a little more masculine than your typical women's pants suit. Clarke was pretty sure that she was wearing makeup, but only enough to accentuate her features, and her hair hang in soft waves around her face. 

"Thank you," Lexa said in response, without half an eternity's hesitation first. "Should we go?"

"Yeah," Clarke said. "I guess we'd better." She grabbed her purse and her keys, waiting for Lexa to exit and then locking the door after them. She tossed the books that she'd dumped in the passenger's seat and forgotten to bring in with her into the back, and watched as Lexa lowered herself in, her movements unexpectedly graceful.

She twisted the key in the ignition as soon as she'd clicked her seat belt into place, and was about to put the car in reverse when she decided she would give Lexa one last chance to back out. "You don't have to do this," she said. "I... I can face this on my own." 

"I do," Lexa said, sounding almost apologetic. "I already told my ex I couldn't make it because I had to go to my girlfriend's high school reunion. I'm not going to let you make a liar out of me."

"Um," Clarke said. She knew that Lexa meant it as a joke (or at least she was pretty sure) but...

"Or more of a liar, I guess," Lexa said after a second. "Anyway, no. I'm in this. _We're_ in this."

"Okay," Clarke said, and backed out of her parking space. They were silent as they got on the road, and Clarke wasn't sure whether she should turn up the music or what. 

Once they were on the highway, though, Lexa turned so that she could look at Clarke. "So," she said. "How did we meet?"

* * *

Lexa watched as Clarke's eyes flicked toward her before returning to the road, and she was glad when she saw the corners of Clarke's lips start to curve up into a smile. "That's easy," she said. "We were set up on a blind date by friends of ours."

She couldn't help a soft laugh at that. "Of course. The best lies are mostly true. All right, so our friends Lincoln and Octavia – they're not going to be there, are they?"

"No. Octavia was two years behind me in school," Clarke said. "Her brother will be, though."

Lexa pursed her lips. "She wouldn't tell him, would she?"

"I don't think so," Clarke said. "I hope not. It would kind of defeat the purpose."

"Right. So they set us up on a blind date – why?"

"Because all work and no play makes Clarke a dull girl," Clarke said. "Octavia says I work too much and that if I don't ever actually take time for myself I'm going to end up one of those sad, pathetic people who only ever talks about work."

"I don't think you're dull," Lexa said, and then wished she could take it back. Maybe it was a good thing that she kept complimenting Clarke; maybe it would help carry the story that they were trying to tell, but she didn't want to make Clarke more uncomfortable than she already was by acting as if she actually believed that there was even a grain of truth to the act they were putting on. She cleared her throat. "Lincoln probably would say the same about me. So I guess they decided maybe we could help each other with our workaholic ways."

"How long have we been dating?" Clarke asked. 

Lexa considered. If they said they'd been together for a long time, they were more likely to get tripped up trying to fill in the gaps if asked. If they said too short a time, though, then people might get suspicious. "Six months?" she suggested.

"Almost seven," Clarke said. "Our first date was on New Year's Eve."

"Oh, that's right," Lexa said, and then she had an idea.

* * *

Clarke happened to glance over at Lexa then, and saw her face light up. "What?"

"They didn't actually _tell_ us they were setting us up," Lexa said. "Octavia just told you that there was someone that she wanted you to meet, and Lincoln did the same to me, and they introduced us and then basically disappeared, leaving us alone together at a party where we hardly knew anyone."

Lexa's smile was both stunning and contagious. "We bonded over how much we wanted to kill them," Clarke said, grinning. "And then we just started talking about how they're always on our cases about how we work too much, and we found out we actually had a lot in common, and we decided to go on a second date..."

"Which turned into a third, where we had an entire conversation about just how annoying it was that they had actually been _right_ , and we joked about how long we could keep the fact that we were, in fact, dating from them," Lexa continued. 

"You kissed me on the third date," Clarke said. 

"I kissed you on the _first_ date," Lexa corrected. "It was New Year's Eve! I kissed you at midnight... as long as that was okay with you."

"It was okay," Clarke said, and there were the butterflies again, and she kind of wanted to put an end to this conversation because there was some strange little part of her that wasn't believing the lies, exactly... but that kind of wished that she could. Or maybe that they weren't lies at all.

Maybe Lexa picked up on that, or maybe she just decided that there were other things that they needed to get straight – or not so straight – first. "Do I call you my girlfriend?" she asked. "Or my partner? My significant other?"

"Girlfriend, I guess," Clarke said. "Unless you're not comfortable with that."

"No, it's fine," Lexa said. "Do we..." She hesitated, and when Clarke glanced over she saw that she was biting her lip. "Do we live together?"

"No," Clarke said. "But we've been talking about it, since my lease is up soon."

Lexa nodded. "Um... I'm trying to think of what else people might ask."

"Yeah," Clarke said. "It's been so long for me, I honestly have no idea."

Lexa was quiet for a while, and Clarke thought maybe they would just have to wing it, to take things as they came. It would probably be all right, as long as they didn't end up in separate conversations with the same people, and gave contradictory answers. Which meant that their best bet would be to stick together as much as possible. 

Which brought up another question, which she wasn't actually sure how to ask.

* * *

Lexa looked over at Clarke and saw that she was practically squirming. "What's wrong?"

"I just realized... we should probably figure out... boundaries. Like... physical boundaries," Clarke said. "I don't want to do anything that will make you uncomfortable just for the sake of selling a story. 

"Oh," Lexa said, and felt herself flush. "Right. What... are there things you're thinking of?"

"No," Clarke said, maybe a little too quickly. "Just... how, um, affectionate are we? Around other people. Do we, uh, hold hands?"

"Holding hands is okay," Lexa said. "Or putting our arms around each other. At least that's okay with me, if it's okay with you."

"It's okay with me," Clarke said. 

"Okay," Lexa said. "What about—" But she couldn't say it. It was pushing too far, asking too much. Not that she was asking for Clarke to actually _do_ anything, only trying to figure out whether or not it would be okay if it felt appropriate in the moment. 

"What about what?" Clarke asked. 

"Nothing," Lexa said. "Never mind."

"Don't do that," Clarke said. "You know I hate when you do that."

Lexa felt the words like a slap. "I don't," she said softly. "I don't know you at all."

* * *

 _You **idiot** ,_ Clarke thought. She'd done it again. Would her ability to inflict emotional wounds on Lexa never cease? Talking to her as if they really were a couple, like Lexa really should have known already how crazy it drove her when people started to say something and then refused to finish it. She didn't have time for passive-aggressive bullshit. 

"I'm sorry," she said, and if they had been anywhere but the highway she would have pulled over to touch her, to talk to her, to make it okay. "Lexa, I'm sorry. You're right, you don't know me, and I shouldn't act like you do, or like you should. We... maybe this was a bad idea."

"Maybe," Lexa agreed, "but we've come this far, and I'm not the kind of person who backs down from a challenge."

"Will you please finish what you'd started to say?" Clarke asked. 

"I was going to ask if it was all right to kiss you," Lexa said, "if it felt really right in the moment. Not... not just to do it. I don't want to make you uncomfortable either."

"If it felt right," Clarke said, "it would be all right."

"Okay," Lexa said. 

The rest of the ride was spent going over various details about each other that they might need to know – where they'd gone to school, what they did for work now, what their families were like, that kind of thing. Clarke found that they had reached their exit altogether too soon, and the hotel where the reunion was being held was right there. 

"Shit," she said as they parked. "There's still time for us to get out of here before anyone sees us."

Lexa looked at her, and Clarke was more than a little surprised when she reached out and touched her cheek. "No," she said. "Let's go prove those assholes wrong." She let her touch linger for a moment before unfastening her seatbelt and getting out of the car, which meant that Clarke was forced to follow suit. 

Lexa offered her arm, and Clarke tucked her hand into the crook of it, taking comfort from the strength of it, of the solid presence of Lexa at her side. "Thank you," she said softly, "for doing this."

"For you?" Lexa smiled, and there was so much sweetness in it Clarke felt her insides go a bit wobbly. "Anything."

Clarke hoped she meant that, because the only response she could think of, the only thing that felt absolutely right in that moment, was to kiss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so not quite Friends to Lovers, but... almost-strangers to people who kiss each other? It kinda works?


	3. Chapter 3

For a fraction of a second, Lexa didn't move. They'd talked about it, about the possibility of kissing if it felt right in the moment, but she hadn't actually expected it to happen. Every signal Clarke had given had been mixed at best, every sign had pointed to this being almost as uncomfortable as attending Costia's wedding would have been. 

But now?

Lexa's fingers slid into Clarke's hair, disheveling the careful arrangement as she cradled the back of her head, her lips parting against Clarke's to deepen the kiss, not too much but just enough that she would know that it was all right, she didn't mind, she...

"Get a room!" someone called, and Clarke pulled away.

Lexa let go immediately, afraid she'd overstepped, an apology already forming on her lips. 

"Shut up, Murphy!" Clarke called back, and Lexa heard the heckler laugh. 

Clarke rolled her eyes and linked her fingers through Lexa's. "Some things never change," she said, but she was smiling, and the knot that had started to form in Lexa's stomach untangled. "He was an asshole then, and he's still an asshole now."

"Hopefully they're not all like him," Lexa said, her tone light. 

"No," Clarke said. "If they were, I wouldn't be here." Her forehead furrowed as she frowned. "I'm honestly surprised that he's here. He wasn't exactly popular in high school." 

_It doesn't sound like you were, either,_ Lexa thought, but she didn't say it. Anyway, maybe that senior superlative had been a joke. Not a funny one, if you asked her, but no one asked her, and she had been – still was, really – notorious for not having much of a sense of humor. "Maybe he's got something to prove, too," Lexa said.

"Maybe he does," Clarke agreed. 

Lexa looked down at her for a moment longer, trying not let her mind drift back to the few seconds when she had almost – no, strike that, there was no almost about it – when she _had_ forgotten that this whole thing was a ruse, and that at the end of the night they would say thank you for the alibi and go their separate ways. Finally she had to look away, or the temptation to steal another kiss would have overwhelmed her. She offered her arm again. "Shall we?"

* * *

Clarke took Lexa's arm and they went inside. She gripped the sleeve of Lexa's jacket maybe a little too tight, wrinkling the material, and when she realized it she tried to smooth it out. Lexa looked over at her and smiled, reaching over to lay her other hand over Clarke's. "It's fine," she said. "You're fine." 

She didn't feel fine. They were barely in the door and she was already overwhelmed. There were too many people in too small a space, and she didn't generally get claustrophobic but there was something about the press of bodies around her here and now that made her want to bolt. 

Maybe it showed on her face, because Lexa steered her toward a pocket in the corner that hadn't filled with people and parked her there. "I'll go get us drinks," she said. "I'll be right back."

It wasn't until she'd disappeared into the crowd again that Clarke realized that Lexa hadn't asked what she wanted to drink. Had they talked about that? They hadn't. They would have had champagne on their first date, it being on New Year's and all... 

_Get it together, Griffin,_ she told herself. _This **is** your first date, and it's not even a real date. It's a fake date for a fake relationship that you're showing off to your fake friends so they don't know how empty your life is._

With the thought came a wave of irritation. Her life _wasn't_ empty. She was doing a job that she loved, a job that was important and that she was good at. She didn't need a relationship for her life to be full and fulfilling...

... but she also couldn't deny the fact that even with all of the awkwardness, the time she'd spent in the car with Lexa, making up their story, had made her feel lighter, freer, _happier_ than she had in a long time. 

And she was smiling to herself just thinking about it. 

"Clarke!" 

She found herself enveloped in a hug before she even knew what was happening or who had said her name. "Uh, hi..." she said, gently prying herself from the woman – the voice and perfume told her that much – so that she could see her face. 

"Harper," the woman prompted. "McIntyre. Soon to be Green, though." Harper beamed, and finally a switch flipped in Clarke's brain, illuminating an image of a group clustered at the end of a lunch table, throwing jokes and food back and forth, too loud and not as funny as they thought they were, or at least that's how Clarke remembered it.

"Green, as in Monty Green?" Clarke asked. 

"The one and only," Harper said. "We were friends in high school—"

"Right," Clarke said. "I remember. You and Monty and Jasper and... Monroe." 

"Zoe," Harper corrected, "but yeah, most people called her Monroe. Also Nate and Bryan." 

More pieces of the memory puzzle slid into place. "Wait, you and Monty...?" Everyone had known that Nate and Bryan were a couple; they'd been out and no one had cared. Clarke had thought that Monty and Jasper were, too, and Harper and Monroe, for that matter. But they'd never confirmed it, and looking back, she realized she had just assumed. She probably wasn't the only one, but it didn't change what happened when one assumed, did it?

Harper laughed, and Clarke hoped that it wasn't because she'd made some kind of face that gave away her thoughts. "I was as surprised as you were, honestly," she said. "I had a thing for him back in high school, but I never said anything, and then there was college and we lost touch. We ran into each other again at—" Her smile faded. "Anyway, we reconnected, and he proposed on New Year's and the wedding is in the fall." 

"Congratulations!" Clarke said, forcing more enthusiasm into her voice than she felt because her mind had snagged on whatever it was that Harper had stopped herself from saying. "That's great." 

"Thank you," Harper said. "What about you?" she asked, her voice softening, edging toward pity proactively. "Did you come with someone?"

"My girlfriend," Clarke said, "Lexa. She went to get us drinks." 

"Oh!" Harper said, her eyes going wide. "That's great. How long have you been together?"

 _Thank you, Lexa,_ Clarke thought. "Six months," she said. "We met at a New Year's Party." 

"That's wonderful," Harper said. "I can't wait to meet her!" But her excitement was just as feigned as Clarke's, and she couldn't quite disguise her relief when she caught sight of someone else in the crowd. "We'll have to catch up more later," she said. "Zoe just got here – speak of the devil and all that." 

"Of course," Clarke said. "See you later."

Harper was gone practically before the words were out of her mouth.

* * *

Lexa was already at the bar before she realized that she hadn't actually asked Clarke what she wanted to drink. Did she drink? She hadn't said anything about not drinking, and she would have, wouldn't she, somewhere along the line? _Nice going, Woods,_ she cursed herself. 

Maybe she should just get water? But Clarke looked like she was seconds away from having a panic attack, and water wasn't going to take the edge off. If she ordered the wrong thing, she would just come back and get another. It wasn't a big deal.

Except it felt like a big deal, because it felt like she _should_ know what Clarke wanted. After all, they'd been dating for six months, and yes, of course Lexa knew it was a lie, and a hastily constructed one at that, but there was a part of her that didn't want to believe it, that felt as if it _could_ be true if she just believed in it hard enough.

 _And with a little sprinkle of fairy dust you'll be able to fly, too._

"What can I get for you?" the bartender asked, managing to look both bored and slightly harried simultaneously.

"I'll have an Old-Fashioned," she said, "and a..." Lexa searched her mind frantically for the name of a drink, _any_ drink that wasn't only ordered by old men and wasn't a martini because seriously, who the hell decided putting an _olive_ in a drink was a good idea? Cosmopolitan? Was that too _Sex in the City_? Was that connection completely weird? 

The bartender looked at her for a second longer, then turned to make her drink, having either given up on her or being kind enough to give her a minute to gather her thoughts. She eased her phone out of her pocket, thinking she would just text Clarke to ask her... and realized that they hadn't exchanged numbers. _Brilliant. Fucking brilliant._ So she googled 'popular drinks' instead, and scrolled down through the results.

"And a Manhattan," she said with more confidence than she felt when the bartender set her drink in front of her. "Thank you." He nodded and turned away again to make the drink, handing Lexa the glass a few minutes later. She made sure to leave him a big tip and wove her way carefully through the press of bodies, murmuring 'excuse me' every few seconds until she finally made it back to Clarke. 

"Sorry for the wait," Lexa said, handing Clarke her drink. More quietly she added, "I hope this is okay."

Clarke took a sip and her eyes fluttered closed for a second. "It's perfect," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Lexa said. 

"I'll pay you—"

Lexa waved the offer away. "You can get the next round," she said, "if we decide we need one."

Clarke snorted. "We're back in high school," she pointed out. "We'll definitely need one." 

Lexa looked at her out of the corner of her eye and caught Clarke looking back, her lips curved up in a smirk. She couldn't help smiling back, and it felt easy, and right, and maybe it was just the alcohol, or the heat of a couple of hundred bodies compressed into a space that was smaller than a school gym, but she felt a warmth in her chest that had been absent for a long, long time. 

_So you're capable of feeling after all._ The words echoed in the voice of every failed relationship she'd had, everyone who had ever called her cold, called her a Grinch, called her heartless, empty...

"Did you get us drinks with cherries on purpose?" Clarke asked, giving her a sly look. 

Lexa looked down into her own glass, and then at Clarke's. "Pure coincidence," she said, but she could hear Clarke's teasing tone reflected in her own. "Why? Did you want there to be an ulterior motive?"

She watched as a flush of color crept into Clarke's cheeks, and she didn't answer, just took another sip – a big one – of the drink. They stood side by side, the silence companionable enough, crowd-watching as they let the alcohol settle their nerves. Lexa tried to keep her gaze from going back to Clarke too often, not wanting her to think – or realize – that Lexa was watching her more than the assembly of chattering alumni. It wasn't as if _she_ was going to see anyone she knew—

"Shit."

* * *

Clarke looked at Lexa sharply. "What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Lexa said, too quickly. "Nothing. It's fine."

"Lexa..." 

Lexa looked at her, and her shoulders slumped, a grimace of apology twisting her lips. "Right," she said. "You hate when I do that."

"When _anyone_ does that," Clarke said. "Not just you." She slid her arm around Lexa's waist, under her jacket so that she could feel the damp heat of the sweat pooling at the small of her back (and they _really_ needed to turn up the AC in this place, or let them into a bigger room, or better yet, both). With Clarke in heels, they were the same height, their hips bumping as Clarke pulled her in just a little closer. "What's wrong?"

"I just thought I saw someone," Lexa said, switching her drink to her other hand so that she could drape her arm loosely around Clarke's shoulders. "I'm sure it was just a passing resemblance." 

"Who?" Clarke asked. "Maybe I know them." Her graduating class hadn't been so big that she hadn't known most of them, at least in passing. It wouldn't help if the person in question was someone's significant other, but it might put Lexa's mind at ease. 

She watched Lexa as she scanned the crowd again, and felt it when she spotted the person, whoever they were, again, because she stiffened, her fingers digging into Clarke's shoulder. "There," she said, pointing subtly with the hand that held her drink. "With the curly reddish hair." 

It took Clarke a second to follow where she was pointing, and when she did, she knew right a way that it wasn't someone she'd gone to school with. She would remember that hair, if nothing else. She shook her head. "Must be someone's plus one."

A second later Clarke saw a face that she _did_ remember, ponytail waving like a banner behind her as she pushed through the crowd. People gave way, making a path for her. They always had, even before the accident and the brace and the resulting stilted gait that made the fact that it was Raven Reyes passing through unmistakable. 

The path led her directly to the woman whose presence had unsettled Lexa, and right into her arms. The woman turned to look at Raven, giving them a good look at her face for just a second before it disappeared behind Raven's ponytail as they kissed. 

"Huh," Clarke said, barely registering Lexa cursing again. "I didn't see _that_ coming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think I'd forgotten this story? I hadn't! I forget nothing! (That is a lie, but I have a spreadsheet...) 
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the epically long wait for an update. Hopefully I'll be able to get this (and some other stories) going again in the upcoming weeks/months.


	4. Chapter 4

Lexa looked at Clarke. "Who's that?" she asked. "Ponytail, I mean."

"Raven," Clarke said. "Raven Reyes. Literal genius, works for NASA, determined to be the first disabled woman in space and she's stubborn enough that she just might manage it." She looked up at Lexa and smiled, the expression a little lopsided. "We were kind of friends in high school. Still are, I guess. Sort of."

"That's a lot of caveats," Lexa said, not trying to hide her amusement. Not that she didn't understand how complicated relationships could be, but if she could keep Clarke talking about herself...

_Who are you kidding?_ Her own voice, not quite her conscience but whatever the part of yourself was that called you out when you were being an idiot. _If that girl – woman – is a friend of hers, they're going to end up talking. So unless you plan to hide out in the bathroom the entire time that happens, you're going to have to face this._

"It's a long story," Clarke said. "Pure high school drama." 

"We've got time," Lexa said. "Unless it's the kind of story that only gets told after the second round. In which case..." She made a show of taking a big gulp of her drink. Clarke laughed, and holy _shit_ did that do things to Lexa that she didn't want to – and definitely shouldn't allow herself – to think about. Suffice to say the warmth she felt wasn't just from the temperature of the room or the alcohol. 

"Fine," Clarke said. "But that means you're buying the next round, too."

Lexa snorted. "Oh, is that how it is?"

"You know it," Clarke said, the accompanying wink keeping any sting out o f the words, because of course Lexa _didn't_ know it, and Clarke knew she didn't know it, and it was a game they were playing but they were both on the same side. 

"Not yet," Lexa answered, "but I'm learning."

* * *

Clarke looked down at her drink because she couldn't look at Lexa, not when she smiled like that. It felt as risky as looking directly at the sun, and just as likely to render some part of her irrevocably... not damaged, but changed. 

"I stole her boyfriend," Clarke said. "Accidentally."

She snuck a glance at Lexa, who was looking at her with one eyebrow arched, and it was unfair that she could do that, but really, there was very little about her face, or any other part of her that was _fair_ , and...

... and she needed to stop right there. Focus on the task at hand. Which was apparently relating one of her biggest regrets to her fake girlfriend while surrounded by a bunch of people who she hadn't talked to in years. Not that she had to worry about them overhearing; she was pretty sure that there wasn't a single person in their graduating class who hadn't known about it back when it happened. She was probably lucky that _that_ hadn't been her superlative: Most Likely To Steal Your Boyfriend.

"All right," Lexa said. "My interest is piqued." 

"The summer between junior and senior year, Raven was in a serious car accident while traveling out of state. Some camp or conference or something, I don't remember exactly what. So when school started back up again, she wasn't around, but no one really knew the details at first. I think most people assumed that she'd managed to graduate early and she'd gone off to college, which was a completely plausible explanation. That same summer I lost my dad—" Clarke cut off as a lump unexpectedly formed in her throat. More than ten years later and it still sometimes felt like it was yesterday.

"I'm sorry, Clarke," Lexa said softly, pulling her against her side. Without thinking, Clarke turned into her, resting her head against Lexa's shoulder for a few seconds while she gathered her composure. 

When the ache in her throat had eased, she looked up, giving Lexa a wavering smile. "Thank you," she said. "Point being, when I came back to school, I was kind of mess, and so was Finn. He and Raven had been friends." She paused, screwing up her face. "I don't know what he knew about what was going on with her at that point. He never mentioned her, but he was obviously upset about something. We were at a party and we ended up hooking up, and it was a thing for a little while, but then all of a sudden Raven was back, and as far as she was concerned nothing had changed between her and Finn... who had conveniently neglected to mention the fact that he and Raven were a thing. And even after she came back, he was still... he still had feelings. For me. But I wasn't doing that. Not once I knew. So he ended up alone, and we – Raven and I – ended up working together on a semester-long project, which was awkward at first but eventually we were okay with each other most of the time."

Clarke took another sip of her drink, glad that her hands weren't shaking even if dragging up these memories had her feeling less than steady. "We all went our separate ways after graduation, obviously, but Raven and I kept in touch through social media, went out for drinks a few times when we were in the same place at the same time. Last year we were at different conferences at the same hotel at one point, and we got pretty wasted, because we decided to recount our days and take a shot every time we hit a point where someone mansplained something to us."

"Oh god," Lexa groaned. "How many shots did you end up having?"

"We lost count," Clarke said. "A lot." 

Lexa shook her head. "So I guess you didn't know she was into girls?" 

"Nope. I mean, there was kind of maybe a few times when I thought that she might have been flirting with me, but I always just chalked that up to alcohol and the fact that she's Raven fucking Reyes, and she'll flirt with who she wants to flirt with because fuck misogyny and heteronormativity and all other manifestations of The Man." Clarke couldn't help smiling; she tended to forget sometimes how much fun Raven could be. "We should go say hi."

Lexa's answering smile went suddenly rigid before sliding away altogether. "Okay," she said, "but if we're exchanging drinks for stories, then I think you're buying the second round after all., because there's something you should know."

* * *

Fresh drinks in hand, they found a new place against the wall, not exactly hiding from everyone else, but not _not_ hiding, either. Clarke looked at her expectantly, and Lexa sighed. "Honestly, compared to your story, it seems pretty lame," she admitted. "But the person I saw? The one I thought I knew?" 

"The one Raven kissed?"

Lexa nodded. "I know her."

"Huh," Clarke said, surprised, maybe, but not particularly alarmed. Why would she be? "What are the odds?"

"If your friend Raven is as smart as you say she is, she could probably calculate them for us," Lexa joked. "Whatever they are, though... they're apparently in our favor tonight. Or not, depending on how you want to look at it." 

"Who is she?" Clarke asked, and then her eyes went wide. "She's not an ex, is she?"

Lexa almost laughed, but it came out as more of a croak. "No. Not an ex." Although in hindsight, like Clarke had said about Raven, there had been moments... "We went to college together, and then to law school. We were both at the top of our class, so we were always competing. All the time. For everything. Things that didn't matter. Things that neither of us even cared about, really, except that we didn't want the other to have it. It was bad in undergrad, and it got worse in law school because that was the way that the program was. We were pitted against each other and told to get used to it, because that's what it was going to be like out in the real world, practicing law. Dog eat dog, fighting for every scrap, and if you weren't the winner, you were nothing." 

She looked out at the assembled people who were finally, slowly beginning to filter from this room into another, a set of doors having finally been opened like a pressure release valve. "It was brutal, and we were vicious... but at the same time, in a strange way, we were always encouraging each other, too, pushing each other to be better, pulling each other up because if it couldn't be me then it better be her and not anyone else. It was the two of us against the world first, and the two of us against each other second. We thrived on the competition, and I don't think either of us would have done as well as we did without the other. So as much as we couldn't stand each other, in a strange way we were also almost friends."

"Frenemies," Clarke suggested. 

Lexa nodded, smiled a little wistfully. "Something like that. After our first year, we were both up for the same internship, one that could set up whoever got it up... not for life, but almost. If you got it, you could pretty much go anywhere you wanted after graduation. We knew that we were the top contenders. We knew that it would be one of us, but only one. And then she just... disappeared. Withdrew her application, quit law school, and just dropped off the grid completely. And I honestly thought that she might have..." Lexa swallowed, her stomach doing backflips at the memory, at the overwhelming certainty she'd had that the person who had in some strange way become the closest person to her (because who else could understand what she was going through and how hard she fought to get there and stay there?) was dead, that the pressure had gotten to her and she'd cracked and crumbled and taken her own life. 

She pushed the memory away. 

"I got the internship. On my first day, there were flowers on my desk and a note that just said, 'You're welcome.'" 

"They were from her?" Clarke asked. 

Lexa nodded. She'd known the handwriting, even though the card wasn't signed. "They were moonflowers," she said, a faint smile curving her lips. "Her name is Luna."

* * *

Clarke blinked, trying to process what she'd just heard, and trying _not_ to process the feelings that had risen up as she'd watched the subtle shifts in Lexa's face as she'd told it. She'd said Luna wasn't an ex, but sometimes the line between hate and love was a knife's edge, and...

She bit the inside of her cheek. Luna was here with Raven, had kissed Raven, and that had to mean something... didn't it? It hadn't looked like just a friendly kiss, and who brought a friend as their guest to a high school reunion?

But then, who brought a complete stranger as a fake date?

Desperate, pathetic people, that's who. And wasn't it just her luck that her fake date would run into someone she knew, someone she had obviously had some pretty intense feelings for at one point in the not as distant as Clarke might like past? 

Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back furiously. She was _not_ going to cry. Not over some random girl she'd just met, who had only agreed to this because she needed an alibi to get out of going to a wedding. Lexa wasn't actually anything to her, and she wasn't anything to Lexa, and she needed to remember that. 

"Clarke?" Lexa asked, her voice soft, concerned. 

Clarke didn't need her goddamn pity. "Come on," she said. "It seems like you've got a lot of catching up to do."


	5. Chapter 5

Clarke was pissed. 

_Why_ was she pissed?

Or If she wasn't pissed, she was doing a very good impression of it. Maybe Lexa was too emotionally stunted to figure out whether it was anger or something else. She'd known plenty of people who would agree with that assessment, sometimes furiously and sometimes with the resignation of someone who had suffered for far too long and who had finally given up on things ever changing. Had given up on _her_ ever changing.

Wasn't there some saying about real love being when you accepted someone, loved them, for who they were, not who you wanted them to be? Maybe she'd just made that up. Maybe it was wishful thinking. 

Because here she was again. She'd shown her true colors and Clarke wanted no part of it. Fair enough. She would set her free. 

"Clarke wait," she said, reaching out to catch her before she could get too far away. 

Clarke looked down at where Lexa's fingers had brushed her arm, then up at her, and Lexa couldn't read her expression. Anger? Disgust? She didn't know, but it wasn't anything good. She yanked back her hand, curling her fingers into a loose fist so she wouldn't be tempted again to try to make contact. 

_This has to be a new low, Woods. Getting dumped by someone you aren't even on a real date with._

"What?" Clarke finally asked when nothing came out after the plea. 

"I know I'm not what you wanted," Lexa said. "That's been clear from the start." _Even though you asked for a second chance. Even though I swear I tried, am trying still..._ "I don't know what I said or did that upset you or offended you, but whatever it was, it wasn't intentional, and I'm sorry."

Clarke looked down into her glass, frowning at its contents before taking a too-big gulp. "You didn't do anything," she said. "It's fine. Let's—"

"Do you want me to go?" Lexa asked, the words out before she could really consider them. "If you want me to go, I will."

Clarke snorted. "There's nowhere for you to _to_ go," she said. "This place is basically in the middle of nowhere."

"Then I'll wait in the car," Lexa said. 

" _My_ car?" Clarke asked. "You don't have the keys."

"You could lend them to me," Lexa pointed out. 

"So you can steal it and strand me here?" Clarke asked. "Not fucking likely." 

Lexa sighed and wished they'd foregone the second round of drinks. Alcohol apparently made Clarke belligerent, and Lexa didn't have the energy to deal with it right now. "I wouldn't do that," she said. "Do you really think your best friend would set you up with the kind of person who would do something like that? Maybe you don't know enough to judge _me_ , but don't you have any faith in Octavia?"

Clarke actually seemed to be considering this for a few seconds before she shook her head. "No," she said, then grimaced. "I mean no, she wouldn't set me up with someone who would screw me over."

"Okay," Lexa said, feeling more relieved than the admission probably warranted, but the fact that it hadn't elicited another burst of anger from Clarke seemed like a victory in and of itself. "So if you'd rather I—"

"No," Clarke said. "People have seen us. If you disappear now, how would that look?" 

"You could make up some kind of emergency I had to go deal with," Lexa said. "An emergency court thing or something. They probably wouldn't know the difference." She forced a smile, wondering if her expression looked as fake and plastic as it felt. 

Clarke shook her head. "I'm not going to lie," she said. "Then I would have to keep straight what I said and who I said it to."

Lexa really wasn't sure how to respond to that, considering that every part of this was a lie, but she didn't call Clarke on it because she didn't want to end up having another... disagreement when people were looking. So decided to do what she could to try to salvage the rest of the evening, even if the effort was largely, or entirely, one-sided, and offered her arm. "Shall we?"

* * *

Clarke slid her hand into the crook of Lexa's arm, telling herself that how right it felt didn't bear thinking about. She was a strong, independent woman and she didn't need no man. Or woman. But not being alone in general? There was something to be said for that. 

" _Finally,_ " she said, her mouth watering as the scents of meat and tomato sauce and everything else on the buffet hit her as soon as they stepped into the other, thankfully bigger and cooler, room. There were round tables set up in the back of the room. The buffet tables were to one side, and there was a big area in the middle where Clarke assumed there would be dancing later. There was already music playing a little too loudly, which didn't make sense if the point was to be able to catch up with the people you'd presumably lost touch with.

But maybe whoever was in charge of the sound system understood that if you lost touch with someone, (or everyone) maybe it was for a reason, and that you might not be interested in talking to people now who you never spoke to in high school, either.

"Is this what high school reunions are?" Clarke asked, having to lean in so close to Lexa that her lips almost brushed her ear just to be heard. "Proms for grownups where you show off pictures of your kids and attempt to out humblebrag each other?" 

Lexa looked at her and a smile crept across her face, and Clarke hated the warm fuzzy feeling she got from having said something that amused her. "I didn't go to my prom," Lexa said, "or my reunion, so I wouldn't know."

"When was your reunion?" Clarke asked. She'd assumed that they'd graduated the same year, but she hadn't asked. 

"I guess I shouldn't say I didn't go," Lexa said. "I'm _not_ going. It's in a few weeks."

"Why aren't you going?" Clarke asked. 

"I've heard they're pretty lame," Lexa said, winking at her. "And I have no one to go with."

Clarke's heart did a little flip, and she almost raised her hand and said, "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!" Almost, but not quite, because she would mean it as a joke and Lexa might not take it that way and she'd already made enough of an ass of herself, already stuck her foot in her mouth too many times...

"Looks like there's assigned seats," Lexa said, gesturing to a table where little tented cards were set up, printed with the names of the alumni, along with a table number. For those of them who had RSVPed with a plus one, another card next to it that said So-and-So's Guest, with a little line for them to write in their name. 

"I guess that spares us any awkward cafeteria 'Oh god where do I sit? Everyone is staring at me!' moments," Clarke said. The cards were alphabetical, so it didn't take long to find hers, and the one for Lexa. She grabbed a pen and filled in Lexa's name without ever letting go of her arm, and they made their way toward their assigned table. 

"Lucky thirteen," Lexa said. 

"We'll see," Clarke said, and wound her way between chairs and bodies to get to the table, which was of course in the back corner (but thankfully not right by the bathroom) and she wondered who had made the seating plan and whether it was someone she had inadvertently (or maybe advertently – was that even a word?) pissed off. 

"There you are!" 

Clarke turned around and found herself wrapped in Raven's arms, then held at arm's length, then hugged again. It was such a cliché greeting she couldn't help but laugh as she hugged her back. "Here I am," she said with a shrug. 

"Looking amazing as always," Raven said. Her smile was so bright it lit up the rather dim corner, and Clarke actually started to relax a little. Maybe this wouldn't be a disaster after all. 

"You too," Clarke said, then laughed again when they said at the same time, "Obviously." 

"There's someone I want you to meet," Raven said. She turned, and only then did she notice Lexa. She didn't even try to hide her appreciation as she looked her up and down. "Well _hello_ ," she said, and then laughed. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Don't worry, I don't mean it. Unless you're into that kind of thing, in which case..." She raised an eyebrow. 

"Stop," Clarke said, her tone light but she hoped that Raven would actually listen. "Raven, this is—"

" _Lexa?_ "

* * *

Her head was spinning. Everything was happening a little too fast all of a sudden, and Lexa didn't know what to make of Clarke's (cute, but a little too cocky for her taste) friend's attention. She _thought_ Raven was just joking, trying to get a rise out of her, or Clarke, or both, but...

Her heart slammed into her sternum when she heard her name in a voice that she hadn't heard in so many years. She'd known this was coming, that it would have to happen eventually, and yet there was no way to brace herself for it. "Luna," she said, hoping her voice wouldn't shake and betray how off-kilter she was feeling. 

"I can't believe you're here!" Luna reached out and grabbed her by her upper arms, searching her face with a look like Lexa was the most wonderful thing she'd seen in a long time. Her hands slid down Lexa's arms and gripped her fingers, squeezing. It was a gesture so at odds with everything they'd ever shared in the past, everything they'd ever been to each other, that Lexa pulled away, barely managing to resist the urge to scrub her palms against her pants to wipe away the feeling of Luna's touch. 

_Who are you and what did you do with Luna?_ , she wanted to ask, because this person looked like Luna, and sounded like Luna, but was absolutely _not_ the person she'd gone to school with. 

"You two know each other?" Raven asked, looking back and forth between them. 

"What are the odds, right?" Clarke said. "Lexa suggested you might be able to calculate them." 

Raven grinned. "I mean, probably, yeah, but it might take a while, and be really boring for the rest of you. Also, I would probably need a large surface to write on, and although I never travel without a Sharpie, I don't think they would appreciate it if I started scrawling equations on the walls." 

"We went to school together," Luna said. "Before."

There was a weight to the last word that Lexa felt. A single word that conveyed paragraphs. 

"Oh, that's _her_?" Raven asked, giving Lexa another once-over, but this time it was a whole different kind of appraisal. "Huh. Not how I pictured her _at all_."

* * *

Clarke bristled. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. It wasn't her fight – it probably wasn't a fight at all – but she wasn't going to let one of her friends make Lexa feel bad about something that, at least from the way Lexa told it – had been mutual. Unless there was something she didn't know, something Lexa had omitted, or lied about outright. But she wouldn't do that, would she? She had nothing to gain by it. Not when this was all a charade anyway.

"Whoa," Raven said, holding up her hands. "Down girl. When I imagined Luna's college archnemesis, I always assumed she was, well, not hot." 

"Which I never said," Luna added with a smirk that Clarke wanted to wipe off her face violently, even though the comment was clearly directed at Lexa. "I don't think I ever really described you at all. Not how you look." 

Lexa shrugged, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here, and Clarke reached out and laced their fingers together, her thumb rubbing over Lexa's until she looked over at her and forced a smile. "It's fine," she said. 

_It's not,_ Clarke wanted to say. _If she talked shit about you to Raven, that's not fine._

"Maybe we should get some food," Luna suggested. "We can talk more while we eat." Her smile was easy, her posture relaxed. She was either totally oblivious or incredibly Zen. Either way, Clarke decided she hated her.


	6. Chapter 6

Whatever her feelings for the source of the suggestion might be, Clarke couldn't actually say that getting food was a _bad_ idea, especially two drinks in on an empty stomach. She squeezed Lexa's hand. "Come on," she said gently, leading her toward the buffet. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Raven and Luna weren't right behind them as she grabbed a plate and handed it to Lexa before taking one for herself. "Are you okay?" she asked in an undertone... or as much of an undertone as she could manage in a room with an ambient noise level that was probably just this side of damaging.

Lexa glanced at her and opened her mouth, probably to say she was fine, because what else was she going to say, and maybe it had been stupid to ask in the first place. Then she closed it again and shook her head slightly. "I feel like I'm out of the frying pan, into the fire," she said. "She's not..." Lexa frowned, her forehead furrowing as she put salad on her plate. "She's not who I remember, and I don't know if she changed, or if it's an act, or if somehow my memories have become scrambled, completely tainted by how I felt about her, and the whole thing was all in my head somehow." 

"Oh babe," Clarke said, wanting to put an arm around her, pull her close, like she would if this was real, but then, this _was_ real. Maybe not a real relationship, at least not in the romantic sense, but _Lexa_ was real, and her _feelings_ were real, and it hurt Clarke to see her so shaken up. Trouble was, they were in the middle of a buffet line, with people behind them waiting for their own chance at the food, and anything she did to hold that up might end in a riot. It was the high school cafeteria all over again after all, just without the compartmentalized trays. 

"It's... it will be fine," Lexa said. "Just have to grin and bear it." 

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," Clarke said. "If I'd known—"

"There was no way for you to know," Lexa said. "Even if you had..." But she trailed off, because could she really say that she would have come anyway if she'd known this was going to happen? Was this really better than facing an ex's wedding? With the wedding she could have just conveniently forgotten to RSVP or come down with some kind of intestinal malady at the last minute, or something, gotten out of it at the last minute. Instead...

"Wait," Clarke said. "Don't you have to RSVP for weddings ahead of time?" she asked. 

Lexa looked at her, wide-eyed, maybe startled by the apparent non sequitur, or maybe guilty for having been caught out. "Yes...?"

"So you would have needed an excuse a long time ago for why you couldn't come," Clarke said. "And Octavia and Lincoln only arranged this a few weeks ago, when I started—" She stopped, realizing that they shouldn't be talking about this here. 

Lexa flashed a rueful smile. "You're not the only person to RSVP with an imaginary plus one," she said, quietly enough that only Clarke could hear. "You just drew the short straw when it came to who got to get out of their event." 

Clarke's eyes narrowed. "Gee, thanks," she said, but really, if one was looking at social situations as levels of hell, she was pretty sure that an ex-girlfriend's wedding was a lot farther down than a high school reunion. 

The guy next to Clarke cleared his throat, and she realized they hadn't moved in a while. She nudged Lexa along, and by the time they got to the end, their plates were full. Clarke couldn't help peeking at what Lexa had chosen; she ought to know if she was vegetarian or something, and it hadn't come up. From what she could see, Lexa was definitely an omnivore, not overly picky judging by the variety of things, but somewhat health conscious, as she'd leaned toward veggies and options that weren't coated in butter and cream. 

Clarke, on the other hand, was going to eat her feelings, and she wasn't going to feel guilty about it. They made their way back to the table, the first ones back, and Clarke took the opportunity to reach out and take Lexa's hands in hers. "You didn't imagine it," she said. "Raven described you as Luna's college archnemesis, so you definitely didn't imagine it." 

Lexa smiled at that, looking down at their hands before she looked at Clarke. "Thank you," she said. 

"Of course," Clarke said. "What are friends for?"

* * *

_Is that what we are?_ , Lexa wondered. _Are we friends now?_

Better that than being enemies, which had seemed like a distinct possibility more than once over the last several hours. _Take what you can get and be grateful,_ she told herself. _It will make the drive home a lot easier._

The drive home that was hours away, and between them and it was a minefield of interactions that might leave one or both of them torn apart by emotional shrapnel, bleeding out with no one to bind their wounds except each other... assuming they weren't the ones that inflicted them. 

"Hey," Clarke said, letting go of her hands to touch her face instead, leaning so close their foreheads touched. "Where'd you go?"

Lexa looked up at her and all she could see was her eyes, blue as an autumn sky on the days when the weather was perfect – cool and crisp and not a cloud in sight – and she was lost for a second, stripped of words, of thought, until Clarke's thumbs traced along her jaw, and Lexa tilted her head and let their mouths meet, just softly, just for a second, just long enough that she felt Clarke exhale and lean into it, and when Lexa pulled back she was smiling. They were both smiling.

"Nowhere good," Lexa said, "but I'm back now."

* * *

"I thought I told you two to get a room."

Clarke broke from Lexa's gaze and forced a smile, but she knew it looked more like she was baring her teeth, and honestly she was okay with that. "Murphy."

"Griffin," he responded. He sat down in one of the other chairs at the table, setting his plate in front of him. "How's life been treating you?"

Clarke started to respond, but then she got distracted by the fact that someone – a female someone – took the seat next to Murphy. "Thanks for the help, John," she said, but her tone was teasing. "I see that chivalry really is dead after all." 

"You better believe it. I slayed – slew? – that mother—" He was cut off by the woman leaning in and kissing him, and then they both laughed. Clarke just sat there, blinking, because none of this made sense. At all. This was John Murphy, the biggest asshole at Arkadia High, the guy who used to provoke guys twice his size with his snarky comments and then get his ass handed to him, who spent more days in detention than out of it. And here he was smiling, and laughing, with a girl who seemed to actually genuinely like him. 

"Who are you and what did you do with John Murphy?" Clarke blurted, and was startled when not only did he and his girlfriend (she assumed) laugh, but Lexa did too. 

When Clarke glanced at her, she shrugged. "I almost said the same thing to Luna," she said. 

"She tamed me," Murphy said, looking over at the woman next to him. "Like the fox and the Little Prince."

Clarke blinked again, then shook her head. "Okay, no. You need to stop. You're hurting my brain." 

He just grinned at her. "Clarke, this is Emori. Emori, this is Clarke. Pretty sure I've told you nothing about her, because high school sucked and I have done everything in my power to forget it. And this is..."

"Lexa," Clarke said. "This is Lexa."

"Nice to meet you," Lexa said, holding out a hand, which Murphy didn't reach for, but Emori did, standing up to lean across the table. Which was when Clarke noticed her left hand, which was misshapen and appeared to be missing fingers, or for some of her fingers to have fused together. 

Emori sat down quickly, tucking the hand under the table, all of the good humor gone from her face, and now she was looking at them defiantly, as if daring them to say something. 

Clarke didn't know whether to apologize, to explain that she was a doctor and that part of her brain had just immediately started analyzing, or to just let it go because it wasn't a big deal, except clearly it _was_ a big deal, because Clarke wasn't the first person to stare and she wouldn't be the last. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to..." 

Emori sighed. "It's fine," she said. "Go ahead and ask. I can practically hear your questions banging around, trying to escape."

Clarke shook her head. "It's none of my business, and you don't have to hide it on my account." 

Emori looked at her for a long moment, then drew her hand back out from under the table and picked up her fork with it, using it to hold a piece of steak in place while she used the knife in her right hand to cut it apart. 

"You never did answer my question," Murphy said, not so subtly trying to cover the awkwardness of the moment and redirect the focus to something other than Emori. 

"It's good," Clarke said. "I finally finished med school and my internship, and now I'm a resident at a hospital, so things are good. What about you?"

"Spent a few years getting into trouble, doing myself no favors," Murphy said. "Then I met her and decided maybe it was time I got my life together, because obviously she deserved better than a fuck-up who barely managed to dodge jail time on several occasions."

"Not that I wasn't my own kind of disaster," Emori said. "We pulled each other up." 

"I got interested in cooking, worked a few restaurant jobs, turns out I'm actually halfway decent at it so I went to culinary school and now I'm a chef. Well, sous chef, at a place in DC." 

"Halfway decent." Emori rolled her eyes. "Humility isn't a good look on you." 

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Raven said, finally making her way back to the table. Clarke had actually forgotten for a second that she... and Luna... were sitting here. "Who the hell did we piss off to end up at a table with _you_?"

* * *

_This just keeps getting better and better,_ Lexa thought. If this was a TV show, she might be grabbing a bowl of popcorn and sitting back to watch the drama unfold, but it wasn't. This was real life, and she was – or would be – caught in the crossfire. She straightened, ready to play peacemaker if it came down to it – she was as close to a neutral third party as they were going to get – but Luna beat her to it.

"Raven," Luna said, putting her hands on Raven's upper arms from behind, like she was ready to bear hug her and hold her back if she decided to lunge. "Whatever happened, it's in the past now. Just breathe."

Raven shrugged her off. "Don't," she said. "I'm not..." She shook her head. "I'm not doing this. Why are you even _here_ , Murphy? Everyone hated you, and that's never going to change, so why would you even come back?"

"People can change, Raven," Luna said. "I've told you—"

"Maybe people can change," Raven snapped, "but cockroaches can't. They haven't changed since dinosaurs roamed the earth, so I'm pretty sure that ten years isn't going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference." 

"I told you I'm fucking sorry!" Murphy said. "I don't know how many times I have to say it, or what you want me to do. I can't go back and undo the past. Believe me, I would if I could."

Lexa looked at Clarke, but Clarke looked as confused as Lexa felt. There was clearly something going on here that neither of them – maybe none of them other than Murphy and Raven – knew about, although Luna and Emori didn't seem fazed, so maybe they had at least some idea. 

"If I could go back and not do what I did, I would," Murphy said. "But I swear to god, Raven, it was an accident, and—"

Raven lunged, and Lexa was out of her seat in a second, but Luna had already grabbed her, pulling her away from the table, away from everyone, wrestling her backward until they were out of the room.

It was Clarke who finally broke the silence. "Is someone going to explain what the hell just happened?"


	7. Chapter 7

"It's kind of a funny story," Emori said, but her smile was uncertain, like she wanted to believe it, wanted to make the others believe it, but knew that she was up again nearly impossible odds in making them believe it. 

Clarke didn't smile back. She shifted in her seat, moving closer to Lexa without thinking, and she felt Lexa's hand rest lightly between her shoulder blades. She pressed back into the touch with a quick glance at her girl—date, wondering how she'd known that that's where tension always built up in her, and that the warmth of her hand helped thaw the cold knot that was forming. 

"What is?" 

Clarke's attention was jerked away from looking – possibly glowering – at Murphy by the arrival of Bellamy – Octavia's brother – and his wife, Gina. He smiled and nodded when he saw her, but the smile wavered when he saw Lexa at her side, touching her, and this time nothing could stop the chill that went through her. 

She and Bellamy's relationship – never romantic, although she had occasionally wondered if maybe things might have gone that way if she'd let them – back in high school had been... fraught, to put it mildly. There had been times when they'd hated each other, and times when they'd gotten along pretty well. They'd taken a lot of the same classes, and as a result had ended up teamed up on more than one project. Sometimes the end result had been great, but sometimes – often – they'd managed to bring out the worst in each other in the process. They got along now, mostly because Octavia didn't give them a choice, but there was an element of wariness, of walking on eggshells, around each other. 

Clarke felt Lexa bristle, her hand on Clarke's back pressing just a little bit harder, and she laid her hand on Lexa's knee to reassure her. "Hey," she said. "This is my girlfriend, Lexa. Lexa, this is Octavia's brother Bellamy and his wife Gina." 

"Ah," Lexa said, and Clarke wondered how much and what she'd heard about the Blake family through Lincoln. If he has anything like Octavia, he certainly wouldn't shut up about _her_ , but the rest of the family? She had no idea. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," Bellamy said, but he didn't sound like he meant it. 

Gina's smile was more genuine, but then she was generally a more open, welcoming person, and Clarke assumed that their relationship worked on the principle that opposites attract. "It's so good to actually get out of the house and interact with adults," she said, taking the seat on Lexa's other side, since it was one of the two left free. Clarke breathed a silent sigh of relief; somehow having Bellamy and Lexa right next to each other felt like a recipe for disaster, even though she had nothing more than gut instinct to back it up. 

"You spawned?" Murphy asked, and Emori nudged – closer to punched – him in the upper arm. 

"We have a six-month-old daughter," Gina said, beaming. "Persephone." 

"Octavia and Lincoln are watching her for the weekend," Bellamy added. "Might keep them from getting any ideas." He grinned.

Clarke opened her mouth to say, 'Too late,' but stopped herself just in time. If Bellamy didn't already know, it definitely wasn't her place to tell him. Even if the idea of getting a little revenge on Octavia for the stunt she'd pulled was tempting. Instead she asked, because she was pretty sure that she was required to ask, "Do you have pictures?"

* * *

Lexa cringed inwardly at Clarke's question and wished that they could get back to the story of what the hell Murphy had done that had sent Raven into a homicidal rage. She considered excusing herself to go check on Raven and Luna, make sure that there hadn't been any bloodshed, but that would have felt like leaving Clarke to the wolves, and she couldn't do that. Even if the wolves were pulling out their phones to show off pictures of their new cub.

Clarke reached across her and took Gina's phone, scrolling through the pictures, and Lexa looked over her shoulder. She didn't see the appeal of babies that so many people did; she didn't know what to do with kids until they were verbal and at least marginally capable of rational thought. At least baby Persephone wasn't funny-looking, and even she could acknowledge that when she was dressed in a little hooded onesie that made her look like a tiny teddy bear, she was pretty damn cute, and she told Gina so. Gina beamed at her, and Lexa felt like she'd scored a few Good Girlfriend points. Not that that was actually a thing, and not that it would matter at the end of the night, but at least when Clarke's friends (or whatever she would call these people) thought back on the night, they would think that Clarke had decent taste in partners. 

Although maybe it would be better if she didn't try _too_ hard, because then it would be harder for Clarke to explain later on why they'd broken up. Which she would have to do if she stayed in contact with anyone; a fact that neither of them had considered. 

_I guess we'll have something to talk about on the drive home,_ she thought, and wished that she hadn't finished her drink. Getting another one was out of the question, though, at least until she had something _other_ than alcohol in her stomach. 

"Our food is probably getting cold," she said quietly, mostly to Clarke, but there was no way to keep the others from hearing. 

"I'm used to it by now," Gina said. "Babies have notoriously bad timing." She grimaced. "And that is the last I'm going to mention her," she added with a laugh. "I am not going to be one of those new parents who is incapable of talking about anything other than their kid, I swear."

"And I want to hear this funny story," Bellamy said, looking at Murphy and Emori. 

"It's not _that_ funny," Murphy said. "It might have been, but..." He seemed to deflate a little. "You remember when we had to evacuate the school, and the science wing was basically shut down for three days?" Lexa's eyebrows went up as Clarke and Bellamy nodded. A glance at Gina gave her a glimpse at what her own face probably looked like. "Yeah. Accidentally created some kind of toxic gas that turned out to also be highly flammable, and kind of blew up the chem lab." Murphy shrugged. "It wouldn't have been a big deal – I mean, other than the fact that I could have killed everyone in the school – except that Raven had some kind of project she'd been working on for months that she'd brought in to have one of the teachers – Mr. Sinclair? – look at, and it got destroyed. She's wanted to kill me ever since." He shrugged again and stabbed his fork into his food. "Hilarious, right?"

No one laughed.

* * *

The silence at the table was awkward – more than awkward – and no one seemed inclined to be the one to break it. Clarke remembered the explosion, but she somehow hadn't known about Raven's project being a casualty. She hadn't said anything about it to Clarke back then, but then, they hadn't exactly been close, had they? 

She looked over at Lexa, who looked back at her, and a whole conversation happened without a single word being exchanged:

' _These_ were your friends in high school?'

'We weren't friends, exactly. I didn't really _have_ friends.'

'But Raven is your friend now. Maybe we should go check on her?'

'Maybe, but...'

'But she might murder Murphy.'

'But he might deserve it.'

'After 10 years?'

'Is there a statute of limitations on ruining someone's life?'

'From what you said, her _life_ wasn't ruined. Maybe her day, even her semester, but she seems like she's doing all right for herself.'

'True. But she's stubborn and can hold a grudge longer than God. Maybe it's better to just let Luna deal with it.'

'The Luna I know – knew –"

The silent conversation was cut off by the people in question returning to the table and taking their seats, tucking in to their dinners as if nothing had happened while the rest of them just stared, or tried not to stare. 

"Seriously?" Raven asked finally. "Look, it's fine. It's..." She looked directly at Murphy. "You're an asshole and a cockroach, and I don't think that's ever going to change. But as the angel of my better nature pointed out to me," a smile at Luna, "in the end I started over, built something even better than what I'd originally made, entered the contest and won, got a patent, sold it and paid for college and then some with it, so it's probably time to let it go."

Murphy's mouth quirked in a crooked smile. "If I didn't know better, I would almost think you were forgiving me," he said. "Or, dare I say it, _thanking_ me."

Raven snorted. "Yeah, don't push your luck," she said, but Clarke saw the faintest flicker of a smile.

* * *

And just like that, the tension at the table evaporated, or at least most of it, and conversation turned to what they'd been up to since high school – college and first jobs and current jobs and relationships and everything in between, with people interrupting and talking over each other and remembering little bits of shared history, fragments of a past that they shared and that Lexa wasn't part of, and knew nothing about. Which wasn't a problem, per se; they could always say that Clarke didn't talk about high school much. But it left Lexa feeling on the edges of things, and acutely aware that if she attended her own high school reunion, she wouldn't have even this much in common with people. She'd kept herself too far removed from things, from people, to feel like she had any place among her peers. 

Maybe Clarke noticed how quiet she'd gotten, or seen something in her face, or maybe she was just playing up the act that were putting on, but Lexa felt Clarke's hand on her knee, and she managed not to flinch away. 

"How did you two meet?" Gina asked, turning her attention on them. 

Clarke launched into the story of being set up by Octavia and Lincoln on New Year's Eve, and Gina smiled. "That explains why we haven't met before," she said. "We were at the hospital that night." Because Persephone had been a New Year's baby. Right. She'd mentioned that, despite what she'd said about not talking about the baby anymore. "And we've been a little busy since."

The conversation moved on from there, but Lexa could feel eyes on her, and when she looked up it was Luna, not staring exactly, but her attention kept coming back to Lexa, like she wanted to say something. Lexa didn't want it to, but it got under her skin. 

When Raven got up to get more food, and Clarke to get them more drinks, Luna shifted over to Clarke's seat. For a second, she didn't say anything, and Lexa wondered if this was as awkward for Luna as it was for her. She almost said something, anything, to break the silence, but decided to wait it – her, Luna – out. If there as going to be a conversation, let her start it. Lexa didn't have anything to say to her. 

"I saw about the wedding," Luna said after what felt like several minutes, but was probably less than one. "I'm sorry."

Lexa frowned. "Why? You didn't know her. You didn't know us."

"I know you loved her," Luna said. "She was maybe the only thing that you loved more than winning." She smiled, and it was gentle, sympathetic but almost teasing, like nothing that had happened between them in the past mattered to her anymore but she knew it still mattered to Lexa. She'd moved on, moved past it, left Lexa and the tangled web they'd woven – and trapped themselves in – behind.

Lexa looked down, wishing that Clarke would come back, that she could drown the memories she'd been trying so hard not to think about in whiskey. "Maybe," she said, but she hadn't, or at least Costia hadn't thought she had. Loved her more than winning. She tried to brush it away, because this wasn't a conversation she wanted to be having, especially not with Luna. "It was a thousand years ago."

"Five," Luna said. 

"Which is 20% of my life, if you subtract out the first few years that I don't remember anyway," Lexa said, trying to make it a joke now, trying to force it to feel as long ago as the percentage wanted to make it seem... although when she thought about it, was 20% really so much? 

"Still," Luna said. "It can't be easy."

Lexa bristled. "Why not? She moved on. So did I." Where the _hell_ was Clarke when she needed her? Not just for the alcohol. Her heart was beating too hard and too fast, and all she wanted was to hold Clarke's hand, to feel her at her side and know that she wasn't alone...

... except she was. Clarke wasn't real. Or, well, Clarke was real, but their relationship wasn't, this date wasn't, these feelings weren't...

 _Fuck._

"Excuse me," she said, pushing back her chair and standing up. "I'm going to go make sure Clarke doesn't need a hand."

She was out of the room before Luna had a chance to respond, back into the other room where the bar was, and there was Clarke, a glass in each hand, and her eyes lit up when she saw Lexa, her mouth curving upward, except no, they didn't, they wouldn't, Lexa was imagining it, seeing what she wanted to see. The start of a smile faded almost immediately. "What's wrong?" Clarke asked. "Lexa?" She set the drinks down and closed the distance between them, pulling Lexa into her, and Lexa let herself be pulled even though she knew she shouldn't, knew it was a bad idea, that it would just feed the fire and her delusions. 

"Lexa," Clarke said, wrapping her arms around her, her hands slid under her jacket to press against the small of her back. "Talk to me."

Lexa shook her head. "I can't," she said, her hands coming to rest on either side of Clarke's neck, her thumbs tracing her jaw. "Not without—" She swallowed. "Can this just be enough? For now?"

Clarke tightened her arms around Lexa, drawing her into a hug, her head resting against Lexa's shoulder. "Okay," she said, her breath brushing Lexa's neck and sending a shiver through her that it was best she didn't think about, because it wasn't like that. Clarke had made that clear from the start, and this was just... friendly, she guessed. They could be friends, right? After tonight, how could they be anything else? 

Clarke's lips almost touched her skin as she whispered, "For now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who have read [Where There Is A Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5474192/chapters/12650540), you may recognize the name of Bellamy and Gina's baby... and her birthday. Because names are hard, and so are keeping track of different backstories, so I picked one and stuck with it. *g*


	8. Chapter 8

_Don't kiss her neck,_ Clarke thought. _Whatever you do, don't kiss her neck._ Even though it was _right there_ , so close that Clarke could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. But it would be wrong, a violation of the rules they'd laid out. Even though they'd agreed that kissing would be okay if it felt right in the minute, Clarke knew that this would be overstepping, because somehow it felt more intimate than brushing her lips against Lexa's...

... which _also_ seemed like a good idea, now that she'd thought it, and was therefore exactly the wrong thing to do in this moment. Lexa was clearly upset, vulnerable in some way that she didn't want to discuss with Clarke, because that wasn't who they were to each other, although the line between fantasy and reality was getting blurrier and blurrier the longer they stood there holding on to each other. 

Clarke finally lifted her head, taking half a step back so that she could tell which pounding pulse was her own. "Did someone say something?" she asked. "If they did—"

A flicker of a smile danced across Lexa's lips, the tiniest hint of amusement in her eyes. "No," she said. "No one said anything to me. They're fine. I'm fine." She hesitated, then added, "Thank you." 

"I'm sorr—" Clarke started to say, but Lexa pulled her in and stopped the word with her mouth against Clarke's. 

"Stop apologizing," Lexa said. "Every time you try to say you're sorry, I'm going to do that."

Clarke bit the inside of her cheek, trying to fight back a smirk. "I'm so—" This time she was ready for Lexa, and when their mouths met, she slid her fingers into Lexa's hair, holding her there and kissing her back. Lexa's lips parted and Clarke flicked her tongue over her lower lip, tracing the full curve of it, swallowing the low moan that escaped Lexa's throat before letting her go. 

Lexa narrowed her eyes as she caught her breath. "You did that on purpose," she said. 

"Did I? I'm—" 

This time it was Lexa's hand that covered her mouth, just for a second before leaving just one finger against her lips. "Oh no!" she said. "I'm not falling for that again!" 

Clarke nipped at her finger. "You said that every time—"

"I know what I said," Lexa replied. "That was before I knew you enjoyed it!" The laughter in her eyes died a second later, and she held up both hands in a gesture of guilty surrender. "That's not—I didn't mean it the way that it sounded. I wouldn't—"

"I know," Clarke said. She took Lexa's hands and pressed them together between her palms, kissing her fingertips. "I know what you meant. You made the rules before you knew that I will do whatever it takes to win." 

"Are there really any losers here?" Lexa asked. 

Clarke laughed. "Plenty," she said. "But for once I don't feel like I'm one of them."

* * *

Something ignited in Lexa's core, sending sparks out through the rest of her body. Maybe... maybe she'd been wrong about the signals Clarke was sending after all. Maybe she wasn't imagining as much as she thought she was. That kiss certainly would have led just about anyone to think...

Just about anyone. Which was the point. There wasn't anyone specific they were trying to convince right that moment, but that didn't mean that this wasn't all still an act, a game, and hadn't Clarke just said that she was willing to do whatever it took to win? If she got Lexa thinking that she really had a chance, that they really might have some kind of spark, some connection, that would just make it all more convincing, right? Because the game Clarke was trying to win was High School Reunion. 

And so what if Lexa's feelings were collateral damage? 

It was like ice had been dropped down her collar and slid down her spine, cooling her rising ardor in its wake. She bit her tongue to keep from saying something cruel, because her inability to stay focused on the task at hand and keep her emotions in check wasn't Clarke's fault. 

She reached for her drink and took two long gulps, almost draining the glass in the process. She plucked the cherry out by its stem and stuck it in her mouth, sucking the liquor from it, watching Clarke watch her as she swallowed, her eyes fixed on the cherry caught between Lexa's lips. 

"There you two are," Raven said. "I was starting to think maybe you'd decided to head up to your room for a quickie or something." She grinned, and Lexa felt heat burning up her neck to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. At least if anyone noticed she could blame the alcohol...

Which made her realize that she still had the cherry in her mouth, and she tried to swallow it quickly, forgetting that the stem was still attached and nearly choking. She grabbed the stem and pulled it from her mouth, dropping it back into her glass.

Raven had, of course, seen all of this, and Lexa felt herself stiffen, daring her to say anything. Raven just smirked at her, then reached for Clarke's glass, stealing the cherry and popping it into her own mouth, stem and all. Her face contorted for a few seconds, and then she stuck out her tongue with the stem tied in a half knot dangling from the tip.

Clarke rolled her eyes. "You should show that trick to your girlfriend," she said dryly. "I'm sure she would appreciate it."

Raven's smirk slid into a full-fledged grin. "You think I haven't? Trust me, she knows very well what I can do with—" She cut off at Clarke's glare, laughing. "Don't worry, Griffin," she said. "I'm not trying to steal your girl. It's pretty obvious she only has eyes for you." 

Clarke glanced at Lexa, who obliged her with a smile, sliding her hand against the small of Clarke's back to nudge her just a little closer. 

" _Were_ you trying to sneak off?" Raven asked. "Because the party is just getting started, and while we could certainly make excuses for you, I would think you would want to show off for at least a little longer."

"We don't have a room," Clarke said. "We're not staying."

Raven's eyebrows went up. "Like hell you're not," she said. "There's no way you drove all the way here for some mediocre food and a couple of hours of dancing to the music of our youth just to drive back again afterward. That's not even considering the fact that you're already three drinks in, which means waiting at least three hours, maybe longer, to be sober enough to drive, and do you _really_ think you can make it through the rest of the night without any more alcohol?"

"Clarke can drink," Lexa said. "I'll drive us home."

"You're not—"

" _When_ I'm sober," Lexa said. "We have to go back tonight. We – I have an obligation in the morning." 

"An obligation." Raven clearly wasn't buying it. "What kind of obligation?"

"Nothing that is any of your business," Lexa said, unable to keep the edge out of her voice as the conversation spiraled out of her control too quickly. 

"Because it doesn't exist. Come on, Griffin. Live a little. You're already here. Why waste several hours of the night driving home when you could spend that time in bed with your gorgeous girlfriend, and suffer with the rest of us in the morning as we listen to people wax poetic about our high school glory days while eating dry pancakes and soggy eggs at the alumni brunch?" 

"We don't have a room," Clarke repeated. "And we didn't bring anything to stay overnight."

"You have a change of clothes in your car," Raven said. "You're a workaholic doctor who has probably pulled more double shifts than is healthy or legal; you always have a change of clothes in your car. Probably more than one, so Lexa would be covered, too. Am I right, or am I right?"

"We're not staying," Clarke insisted. 

"Uh-huh," Raven said. "We'll see." And then she just walked away, heading toward the main part of the hotel. Lexa was tempted to follow her, to stop her from doing whatever she was about to do, but Clarke's fingers were clenched in the fabric of her shirt, and she was stuck.

* * *

Clarke grabbed her drink and downed it. "I fucking hate my friends," she said. "She doesn't know when to take no for an answer. She never has. Unfortunately, it's gotten her so far in her career that she thinks it should be equally effective in her personal life." She looked up at Lexa, trying to figure out if she was upset (still, or again) or what she might be thinking about Raven's bullheaded behavior, but her face was unreadable. 

"I'm sorry," Clarke said. "Lexa, I—"

Then Lexa's mouth was on hers, softly, just for a second, stealing the words from her lips. "I told you," she said. "Stop apologizing." 

Tears rose in Clarke's eyes and she reached up to dash them away, but Lexa beat her to it, pulling an honest-to-god handkerchief from the inside pocket of her jacket and using it to dab gently under Clarke's eyes so that she didn't smear her makeup. The urge to apologize for crying rose to the tip of her tongue before she managed to swallow it back again, even though doing so might have gotten her another kiss. 

A kiss she shouldn't want, but she did. Probably that was just the buzzing in her head (and bloodstream) talking...

"Hey," Lexa said. "You hear that?"

Clarke tipped her head, trying to hear whatever Lexa was hearing. She could hear the bass of the music they were playing in the other room, and the dull rumble of conversation, but not much else. "Hear what?"

"I think they're playing our song," Lexa said. 

"We don't have a song," Clarke said. "We—"

"Then I guess we'll just have to dance until we decide which one we like best," Lexa said, a spark in her eyes, flashing a smile that could stop traffic and probably cure the common cold. "What do you say?"

The meddling-Raven-induced bad mood that had been creeping up, threatening to derail the entire night, evaporated almost instantly, and Clarke found herself smiling back. "I say that I'm _very_ picky about these things," she said, "so it might take a while." She stepped away from Lexa, turning to face her, and hooked her by a beltloop. "I hope you can keep up."

Lexa swallowed the last of her drink and sucked the cherry from its stem, leaving the glass behind. The look in her eyes was wicked. "Try me."


	9. Chapter 9

Lexa tried not to let her hands wander as Clarke pressed up against her, their bodies rocking in rhythm, hips and thighs brushing as they moved together with the beat of the music that pulsed around them. _Keep it PG, Woods,_ she told herself, even as her body screamed for NC-17. Clarke knew how to move, and wasn't afraid to show it off, and it wasn't just the heat of the room and the people pressing in around them that had her feeling parched. 

Every time the song changed, one or the other of them would ask, "Is this the one?" but every time they found some reason that it didn't quite fit, and they laughed and waited for it to be over, and then asked again. 

The DJ finally transitioned to a slow song, and Lexa assumed that would be their cue to go find some water, but when she started to turn away, Clarke caught her hand and reeled her in. "Not yet," she said. "This might be our song..." 

Lexa slid her arms around Clarke's waist, and Clarke's arms twined around her neck, and they shifted from side to side. Lexa tipped her head forward and rested her forehead against Clarke's, letting herself get lost in the different shades of blue that swirled together around pupils gone wide, and not, Lexa thought, just because of the dim lighting. 

Slowly, Clarke's eyes closed and her arms tightened around Lexa's neck as she tipped her head. Their noses brushed and then they were kissing, lips parted, tongues venturing to capture the taste of each other's mouths, and Lexa couldn't even hear the music anymore over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, and all she wanted was to be somewhere else, somewhere where there weren't eyes on them, somewhere where she could ease down the zipper that teased her fingertips and peel away the layer of material that prevented her from finding out exactly how soft Clarke's skin was in all the places that most people never got to see...

"How many times—" Murphy started but was cut off by his better half.

"Leave them alone," Emori said. "You can't say you're not enjoying the view."

Lexa wasn't sure which of them pulled away faster, but it was worth it to see the look on Murphy's face when he realized that he'd been bested at his own game by his girlfriend. 

"I could use some water," Clarke said.

"Me too," Lexa agreed. She didn't let go of Clarke's hand until they were off the dance floor, and then when she tried, Clarke didn't let her. They went back to the table and were grateful to find that the pitcher of water had been refilled. They made short work of the first glasses they poured and sipped the second at a more leisurely pace. 

"I shouldn't have—" Clarke started, but Lexa held up a hand.

"You didn't," Lexa said. " _We_ did."

Clarke nodded, looking down into her glass. She opened her mouth, her breath hitching, but closed it again without saying anything. 

As the music switched back to something up-tempo, Raven and Luna returned to the table. 

"Clarke," Raven said. "Can we come with me for a minute?"

Clarke glanced at Lexa, who raised her eyebrows. It wasn't her choice to make.

"Be right back, babe," Clarke said, standing up. 

"I'll be here," Lexa said, and hoped her smile at the easy endearment wasn't too dopey.

* * *

Clarke followed Raven to the ladies' room, waiting not-altogether-patiently for her to say whatever it is she wanted to say that she hadn't been willing to say in front of their – in front of _her_ girlfriend, and Lexa. 

Raven was studying herself in the mirror, fixing her hair and reapplying her lipstick. "I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "If I was too pushy. If I upset you, or offended you, or... anything. Or Lexa. I wasn't trying to be an asshole, but it turns out I'm pretty good at it without trying. So, I'm sorry." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a little cardboard folder with the hotel's logo on it, setting it on the counter between her and Clarke. "Consider this a token of my remorse." 

Clarke picked it up. Inside was two key cards and a room number. "Raven, I can't—"

"Please," Raven said. "You work too much, and I bet your girlfriend does too. I bet half the time you barely see each other. You deserve to be happy, and it's obvious that she makes you happy, so just... enjoy yourselves, for fuck's sake. Enjoy each other. Loudly, and with abandon, so that everyone who's been married long enough for the passion in their relationship to die will be jealous."

Clarke snorted. "You didn't have to do this," she said. "I didn't think that after ten years you would be anyone but yourself."

"Yeah, well sometimes myself isn't the best person. Just take it." Raven caught her eye through the mirror. "Please."

Clarke looked down at the keycards again. She already knew what Lexa's answer would be if she asked, so there really wasn't a point, but she tucked them into her purse anyway. "We'll see."

Raven grinned. "If by, 'We'll see,' you mean that we'll see Lexa wearing a set of your scrubs in the morning, then hell yeah, we better."

* * *

"You look like you're having a good time." 

Lexa looked up to find that Luna was sitting next to her again and tried not to flinch. "So do you," she said, although if she was being honest she hadn't actually noticed anything but Clarke while they'd been on the dance floor. 

"It's good to see you again," Luna said. "I always wondered what—"

"Why did you do it?" Lexa asked. 

Luna blinked. "Why did I do what?"

"Quit. Why did you drop out of the race for the internship? Why did you leave law school? Why did you give up?"

Luna's eyes almost closed for a moment. When she looked at Lexa again, she wore a soft, almost apologetic smile. "I didn't like who I had become," she said. "Being the best had become more important than being good – a good person, doing good work – and that wasn't what I got into it for, and that wasn't what I wanted for myself, so I took a step back, re-evaluated, and took a different path."

Lexa frowned, because when she explained it like that, it made her wonder what Luna thought of her because she _hadn't_ walked away. Because being the best had mattered to her, too. It still did, and it had cost her plenty pursuing it. 

And it made her wonder who was she really angry at: Luna, or herself?

Did she even have the right to be angry at Luna? 

Maybe not, but it didn't change the fact that she _was_. "Why did you have to do it _then_?" she asked. "Couldn't you have at least waited until they'd made the decision about the internship?"

Now it was Luna's turn to frown. "If they'd offered it to me, I woudn't have accepted it. It wasn't what I wanted anymore. I knew it was down to you and me, so I withdrew my application knowing that you would get it."

"Exactly!" Lexa said, too loud. 

"I'm sorry," Luna said, "I don't understand why you're upset."

"Because now I'll never know whether I would have gotten it on my own merits," Lexa said. "I'll never know if I would have _won_."

Luna closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, and let out a slow breath, and it only made Lexa's blood boil hotter. Luna _was_ judging her, judging her and finding her wanting, judging her and finding herself superior. Again. 

"Does it matter?" Luna asked. 

"Yes!"

"Why?" Luna countered. "What matters is what you did with it. You took the opportunity and you ran with it, and you used it to do good. You went into law because you wanted to help people. You wanted to use the law to protect those who are vulnerable, those who cannot protect themselves. Yes?"

"Yes, but—"

"There is no but, Lexa," Luna said. "You won, because you were able to use the opportunity to get where you wanted to go and do what you wanted to do. You may have thought getting the internship was the end goal, but it wasn't. What came after was the end goal, and you didn't lose sight of the fact that you were in it not for your own good, but the greater good. I did. So I started over, and now I help people too, but in a different way. It's not always easy, but I don't feel like I'm constantly at war with myself, with the people around me, with the world. I've found peace, and I hope that I help other people find it too. It's a good life for me, just as your life is a good life for you. You have a job that you love, and in which you are incredibly successful. You have an amazing girlfriend who looks at you like you're the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. You—"

"It's not—" Lexa clamped her mouth shut before the words – the truth – could escape.

"It's not what?" Luna asked.

"It's complicated."

"What's complicated?" Luna asked. 

"Just... nothing. Never mind."

Luna touched her arm gently. "Is there something going on?"

Lexa pulled away. "Please. Let it go." She couldn't ruin this for Clarke. Not now. Maybe she could swear Luna to secrecy, but how did she know she could trust her even if she did? It wasn't a risk she could take. 

"Do you know how Raven and I met?" Luna asked. Lexa shook her head. It hadn't come up earlier when everyone was catching up. "I was at a coffee shop after a very long day, and I just wanted to relax. There was a group of people off in one corner, all with laptops in front of them, having some kind of meeting. All of a sudden, one of them stood up and attacked another one, looked ready to actually kill him if she could find the means. That was Raven. I got between them, managed to pull her away before she could do anything that would result in criminal charges, got her calmed down... We started talking to each other, and somehow, meeting up in the coffee shop to decompress after difficult days became going out on actual dates, and here we are. Trust me, I can understand complicated." 

She might have said more, but she didn't get the chance, because Raven and Clarke came back, and Raven dragged Luna off to the dance floor again. 

Clarke looked at her for a long moment, her forehead furrowed as she struggled, Lexa suspected, with whether or not to ask Lexa what was wrong. In the end, she just offered her hand and asked, "Is this our song?"


	10. Chapter 10

_Trust me, I can understand complicated._

The words Clarke had overheard Luna saying echoed through her mind, and she wanted to ask Lexa what she'd been talking about. There was no way that Lexa would have told her about their relationship, or the lack thereof. She didn't even _like_ Luna, even if maybe she'd been just a teeny bit in love – or at least in lust – with her back in the day. 

So what was complicated?

But she didn't ask. She just kept dancing, past the point of exhaustion and into elation because when it was just her and her friends and Lexa moving to the music, it didn't feel as if anything was all that complicated. 

She slid her fingers into Lexa's hair, damp with sweat at the nape of her neck, and pulled her down until their lips almost brushed, but Lexa turned her head aside at the last second, even as she dragged Clarke's hips flush with her own, and god, those hips... those hips told all kinds of lies that Clarke was desperate to believe anyway.

"Not this one," Lexa said. "Definitely not this one."

"Maybe you don't actually get to pick your song," Clarke said. "Maybe it picks you."

Lexa laughed. "Maybe it does. Maybe we're trying too hard to make something work. Maybe if we just let it be..." She bit her lip, and of course the DJ chose that moment to put on another slow song. Clarke started to let go, but this time it was Lexa who held on. "We can stay," she said softly. "If you want to stay, we can stay. To keep up appearances, or... or if you just want more time. But..." Clarke watched her throat bob as she swallowed, licked her lips, and all Clarke wanted to do was retrace her tongue's path with her own. "This can't just be... _I_ can't just be a game. And I know that I'm not what you want—"

"What if you are?" Clarke asked. "Lexa... what if you are? I know that I made a terrible first impression, and when you gave me a second chance I blew that one pretty badly, too. But the more I get to know you, the harder it is for me to remember that this isn't, that you're not—" She closed her eyes against a wash of tears. "I know we still barely know each other, but Lexa, as messed up as this all is, this has also been the best night I've had in a long time. I came here expecting to be miserable, to hate every minute, and sure, there have been a few moments that haven't been great, but every time I look at you I just... it feels better. _I_ feel better. I feel _good_ , and I'm sorry if—"

Lexa kissed her, and not just to steal the words that she didn't want to hear from her lips, but to steal the breath from her lungs and a few more pieces of her heart while she as at it. When she finally pulled away, her eyes were glassy with desire. "We can stay," she said. "But right now, I really want to be with you anywhere but here."

"Raven got us a room," Clarke said. "The keys are in my purse."

"Let's go."

* * *

They managed to keep their hands to themselves in the elevator, but only because they were sharing it with a couple who looked like they might drop dead on the spot if they saw anything that made their heartbeat speed up. "Please don't let them have the room next to ours," Clarke muttered when they got off on the same floor, and Lexa choked on a laugh.

Thankfully, the elderly couple tottered off in the opposite direction. It took Clarke three tries to get the keycard to work, although the fact that Lexa was pressed against her back, her hands sliding up from her thighs to just below her breasts, might have distracted her slightly. 

They tumbled into the room and Clarke immediately ditched her heels, pulling their lips away from each other with the sudden height difference. She shoved Lexa's coat off her shoulders and down her arms, at least having the decency to toss it over the back of a chair before she yanked the back of her shirt out of her pants and scraped her nails against the small of her back, pulling their bodies together. Lexa slid her leg between Clarke's, rucking up her skirt so she could grind against Lexa's thigh as she slid down the zipper. 

Clarke's breath was hot on her neck as she fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, and for a second Lexa thought she might just grab and yank but finally the last of them came undone, and then Clarke's lips were on her chest, her tongue flicking out against the damp skin in the hollow of her throat where her pulse beat frantically beneath her skin. 

Lexa peeled down the top of Clarke's dress and watched as it slid down her hips to pool around her feet. Clarke stepped out of it, and for a second all Lexa could do was stare as she stood there in her bra and panties. She stepped on the heel of one of her shoes, sliding her foot out, and then did the same with the other, and let Clarke send her shirt drifting to the floor before she moved to the button of her pants, then the zipper, sliding her hands into them, over Lexa's hips to her ass and pushing them down until they fell. 

For a moment they just looked at each other, chests rising and falling with rapid breaths as they took each other in before diving back into a kiss, fingers scrambling over skin, touching everywhere they could reach except the places that were still covered, the places they most wanted to be touched. 

Lexa unhooked Clarke's bra, and felt Clarke's thumbs hook under the waistband of her underwear, easing them down her hips, and they let the garments fall and switched, and then they were naked, just enough space between them to feel the electric heat radiating from their skin without it touching, and the magnitude of what was happening, what was about to happen, froze them in place. 

Lexa looked at Clarke, and Clarke looked back, and her eyes were so bright, and she looked so... happy. 

"Have I told you you're beautiful?" Lexa asked. "Because you are so, so beautiful..." 

"So are you," Clarke breathed, and then she laughed and stepped them away from the pile of clothes and toward the foot of the bed, sitting Lexa down and then climbing on top of her, straddling her lap so that her breasts were right there and how was Lexa supposed to _not_ touch them, not take their weight in her hands, not roll the taut points between her fingers before sucking them into her mouth and teasing them with her tongue? It was impossible to resist, so she didn't try, and she was rewarded by Clarke's head tipping back as a throaty moan escaped her. 

After what felt like hardly any time at all, Clarke leaned forward, pushing Lexa back and scooting them up toward the pillows, and they were kissing again, holding each other so that as much of their skin touched as possible, legs tangling as they rutted against each other's thighs, leaving behind traces of sticky slickness when they finally pulled apart. 

Lexa looked up at Clarke, swollen-lipped mouth hanging open as she hovered above her. "This time," she said, "I'm getting it right." 

"Getting what...?" But Lexa's breath caught as Clarke's lips grazed her throat and then her collarbone, down her sternum and under the curve of her breast. 

Clarke looked up at her and smirked. "The first impression."

* * *

It had been hours since she'd had a drink, but Clarke was drunk now, intoxicated by the scent (a little sweet, a little spicy) and taste (the faintest tang of salt from the thin layer of sweat that coated it) and texture (soft, so soft, how was it possible for something to be this soft?) of Lexa's skin. She brought her nipples to pebbled peaks and then laved over them with her tongue, over and over until Lexa's hips were jerking beneath hers, demanding that the rest of her body be given its due. Clarke was happy to oblige, kissing her way down to her navel and then out to her hips and down her legs, nipping at the skin of her inner thighs and then soothing the bites with kisses, watching appreciatively as Lexa's legs parted wider and wider for her as she made her ascent. 

The musk of Lexa's arousal flooded Clarke's nose as she pressed a kiss to the glistening tangle of curls, and then the heavy tang of it coated her lips and flooded her mouth as she flicked her tongue out over the swollen nub of her clit. Lexa's hips bucked and she cried out, a sharp, strangled sound that shot straight to Clarke's core, making her acutely aware of the throbbing between her own thighs. 

"Shhh," Clarke breathed, and felt Lexa shiver. She kissed her again, and again, open-mouthed, using the flat of her tongue and then the tip, teasing all around her clit and then over it, listening to the changes in Lexa's breathing, the increasing pitch and urgency of her moans as she drew closer and closer to the peak, but Clarke didn't let her go, not yet...

She worked her up again, and Lexa was shaking, she was so close, and...

* * *

... Clarke's phone rang. 

"Shit," Lexa muttered, grabbing for Clarke's purse, which had somehow actually ended up on the nightstand. She dumped its contents and picked up the phone, wanting only to make the raucous interruption stop. 

Then she saw the name on the screen and was possessed by a puckish whim to get just a tiny bit of revenge. "Hi, Octavia," she said. 

There was a pause, and then, "... Lexa?"

"Yes," she said. "Sorry, but Clarke can't talk right now. Her mouth is otherwise occupied." She hung up before Octavia had a chance to answer and turned off the phone before she could call back. Her own phone was in her jacket, so she hoped that Octavia wouldn't try to call her from Lincoln's phone. 

"Did you really just...?" Clarke asked. Lexa grinned. "I am never going to hear the end of that, you know."

"I'm sorry," Lexa said, and she was, a little. But only a little. "I—"

But Clarke didn't let her finish, because she'd said the forbidden words, and she took a page from Lexa's book and kissed her, gripping her legs and thrusting her tongue deep. Lexa's back arched as finally, finally, Clarke sent her screaming over the edge.

* * *

Clarke wasn't sure if she was having multiple orgasms one after another or if it was all just one long one that refused to release its grip, but it hardly mattered. It had been so long, _so_ long since she'd felt anything like this, and a few of the guys she'd been with had accused her of being a frigid bitch, but no, it wasn't her, it was them, because now she was on fire. Every nerve, every cell sparked and fizzed and she writhed beneath Lexa's mouth until finally the circuit overloaded and she collapsed back against the mattress, utterly spent and unable to move. 

Lexa slid up beside her, wiping her mouth with a tissue before kissing her, but Clarke wouldn't have cared if she hadn't, because the taste of herself on Lexa's lips mingling with lingering taste of Lexa on her own was better, she was sure, than whatever dessert they'd missed with their early departure from the reunion. 

"Wow," she breathed. "That was... wow."

Lexa smiled as she drew the covers up over them so they wouldn't catch a chill as the sweat on their skin cooled, draping her arm over Clarke and nuzzling her temple. "Mm-hmm," she murmured, her breath tickling Clarke's ear.

"One hell of a first date," Clarke said. "What will be do for the second?"

"Well," Lexa said, "among our people, the traditional second date involves a U-Haul..."

Clarke looked at her and saw that she was fighting back a smirk, and she started to laugh, which made Lexa laugh, and once they started they couldn't stop, and every time they were almost calm again, they would look at each other and burst into another fit of giggles. Clarke didn't know what Lexa was thinking about, but for her it was enough to think back on the night and all of the times they'd failed to communicate, missed or misinterpreted each other's signals, and it all could have ended very differently, they could have walked away from each other and never known what might have been, and if she didn't laugh at the thought she would cry, so she chose to laugh. 

And then she chose to pull Lexa close again and kiss her until the laughter stopped and they were breathless for another reason.

* * *

Lexa wrapped her arms around Clarke, running her fingers through her hair and down her spine as she savored the warmth and comforting weight of her sprawled on top of Lexa, pressing her down into the mattress. It was late, or maybe early. From the sounds of people in the halls, the reunion downstairs had broken up, fragmenting into smaller parties in people's rooms for those who weren't ready to sleep. In one of the rooms next to theirs, another couple was having a private party not unlike their own. 

"You know," Clarke said, "when we talked about boundaries, there was one thing that we forgot..."

Lexa chuckled, tipping Clarke's face to kiss her. "I'm pretty sure we've crossed pretty much every line there is to cross," she said.

But Clarke shook her head, serious. "There's still one more."

"What?" Lexa asked. 

Clarke pushed herself up so that they could look each other in the eye. "Am I allowed to fall in love with you?"

Lexa closed her eyes, blinking back tears, and gave her the same answer Clarke had given when she'd asked her about kissing. "If it feels right," she said, "then it's all right."

"Not all at once," Clarke said. "Just a little bit tonight... and a little more tomorrow... and a little more the day after that..."

Lexa didn't know how to do things just a little bit. She never had. It was all or nothing. 

It was all.


	11. Epilogue

**One Year Later**

Lexa watched as Clarke walked down the aisle toward her, fighting tears and a besotted grin at the same time. Sometimes it still seemed impossible that a year ago they'd been fumbling over feelings they hadn't expected to have for a person they'd met only hours before, on what was quite possibly one of the most awkward first dates of all time.

The second date had not, in fact, involved a U-Haul. It had involved Netflix, Chinese food, and sex on nearly every horizontal surface in Clarke's apartment (and up against several vertical ones) and had begun immediately upon their arrival back from the reunion, with Clarke's argument being that it was a different day and a different venue, and therefore qualified as a separate date. That Monday Lexa had been late to work for the first time in her life. She'd regretted nothing. 

They'd moved in together two months later, when Lexa's lease had ended, and Lexa had surprised Clarke on New Year's by getting down on one knee and proposing... and Clarke had surprised her even more by, instead of saying yes, pulling out the ring that she'd brought for the same purpose. They'd laughed until their sides ached when they found out that they'd each confided their plans to their respective best friends, and neither of them had let on... they'd just let them do it, apparently taking it as a sign that they'd been right all along that Clarke and Lexa were meant to be together. 

Their choice of Maid of Honor and Best Man had been a no-brainer.

Maybe it had been spiteful to send an invitation to Costia, but Lexa hadn't been able to resist. She also hadn't been disappointed when the RSVP came back as a decline, with the explanation that she would be too close to her due date to travel by then. Lexa had sent a card back, congratulating her on the impending new arrival, along with a gift card for a baby store that she remembered Costia had always cooed over long before babies were something that she should have been thinking about. Lexa figured she could at least extend that much of an olive branch. After all, it had been avoiding Costia's wedding that had led her to meeting her fiancée. 

They'd talked about kids that night and decided that babies were definitely _not_ their thing (an afternoon spent watching Octavia and Lincoln deal with the constant cycle of eat, sleep, and poop with their newborn son Ethan was enough to convince them of that) but they were open to the idea of adopting an older child at some point. They hadn't put a timeline on it, though. There was no hurry; they had the rest of their lives together. 

And now here they were, about to make it official, and Lexa was as nervous as she had been when she'd walked up to Clarke's door, even though she now knew what she would find on the other side of the threshold: the smartest, funniest, most beautiful, most amazing woman she'd ever met, the one whose smile always made her smile, the one whose body fit perfectly against hers, the one who challenged her and supported her and completed her in ways she'd never even imagined. 

So when the officiant asked if she took Clarke to be her lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or worse, to love and cherish for the rest of their days, she answered without hesitation:

"I do."

* * *

"Lexa and Clarke, you may now kiss your bride."

Clarke lips parted against Lexa's, and it would have been so easy to forget where they were and that everyone was watching, but she made herself hold back, the kiss lingering for only a second or two before she pulled away... but then she couldn't resist stealing just one more kiss when she saw the brightness in Lexa's eyes. 

They held hands as they retreated back up the aisle, and as soon as they were out of sight of their gathered friends and family, Clarke pulled Lexa into another, deeper kiss. "Congratulations, Mrs. Griffin," she said, grinning. 

"Same to you, Mrs. Woods," Lexa teased back. 

"Do we _really_ have to go the reception?" Clarke asked. "Hasn't this relationship been through enough Enforced Socialization Activities to last us a lifetime?"

"I'm pretty sure this is one that we can't skip out on," Lexa said. "Don't worry... we'll have plenty of time of time to ourselves in Hawaii." 

"There's only a day-long flight between here and there..." Clarke grumbled. Why had she let her wife convince her that traveling practically halfway around the world was a good idea? Oh right... getting to see her in a bikini (when she was wearing anything at all) for ten days. Maybe she would learn to hula and Clarke could watch those hips in action again...

"Which is why we're not leaving until tomorrow," Lexa pointed out. Others had started to file out of the venue, so she leaned in close to whisper, "and we can sleep the whole way, because I don't plan on sleeping much tonight."

Clarke swallowed a groan, scowling at Lexa, but she only laughed. They ducked into a little side room before anyone could catch them and waited until they could make their grand entrance for the reception, heading straight for the dance floor for their first dance.

* * *

Lexa rested her forehead against Clarke's, their noses brushing for a second as they swayed to the music. "Is this our song?" she asked. 

"I sure as hell hope so," Clarke answered, "because otherwise we're at the wrong wedding." 

Lexa laughed. "Maybe we're at the wedding of that guy Alex that Octavia wanted to set you up with," she said.

Clarke snorted. "Fuck that guy," she said. "I've heard he's a total loser. He doesn't even bring a girl flowers on a first date." 

"What a jerk," Lexa said. "I'm glad that I got to you first."

"Only as glad as I am," Clarke said. 

The song ended, and they got a brief break to eat before they had to start making the rounds to say hello to everyone and thank them for coming. They finally got to the table where Raven and Luna, Bellamy and Gina, Monty and Harper, and yes, even Murphy and Emori sat. They'd put them all together in honor of where this had all started, and just hoped that Raven wouldn't attempt to murder Murphy this time around. 

"I still think it's so cute that you two got engaged on your one-year anniversary," Harper said. 

For a second Lexa was confused... and then she looked at Clarke and they started to laugh. 

"Yeah," Clarke said, "About that..."

* * *

"Are you kidding me?" Raven said, so loud that people at other tables turned to look at them. "Are you _fucking_ kidding me?" She shook her head. "Nope. No way. There's no way. You're not that good a liar, Griffin."

Clarke slid her arm around Lexa's waist. "Actually, I am," she said, smirking. "We both are. We're such good liars, we even managed to convince ourselves." Lexa laughed, leaning in to kiss her.

"But you were all over each other!" Raven said. "You were all hearts-eyes and disgusting."

"Ask Octavia and Lincoln if you don't believe us!" 

"O!" Bellamy called, and Octavia and Lincoln came over. "These two are trying to convince us that the first time they met was at the reunion last year." 

Octavia and Lincoln looked at each other and started to laugh. "Seriously, Clarke? A whole year and you never came clean?"

"I never really thought about it," Clarke admitted. "We felt like we'd known each other forever anyway..." 

"They're telling the truth," Lincoln said. "Octavia knew Clarke and I knew Lexa, but they'd never met. Then Lexa told me she needed an excuse not to go to an ex's wedding, which was conveniently on the same day that Clarke had told Octavia that she needed a date for her high school reunion so that people wouldn't think that they'd been right about her when they did senior superlatives, and, well..." He gestured to them. "The rest is history."

Murphy smirked. "I mean... we weren't _entirely_ wrong about Clarke," he said. "She may not have ended up a crazy cat lady, but she does love pu—"

Lexa beat them all to the punch, having learned her cue: "Shut up, Murphy!"


End file.
